<br />
He is the man behind the success of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/topic/Delhi-Metro">Delhi’s lifeline – metro</a>. As the architect behind the country’s most successful metro railways, E Sreedharan has also earned appreciation for having successfully built the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Chugging-Out-To-Sea-Five-Coast-hugging-Train-Rides-Along-Indian-Shores/The-Konkan-magic-Karnataka-Goa-Maharashtra/slideshow/27638820.cms">Konkan Railways</a> on one of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Chugging-Out-To-Sea-Five-Coast-hugging-Train-Rides-Along-Indian-Shores/The-Konkan-magic-Karnataka-Goa-Maharashtra/slideshow/27638820.cms">the most challenging terrain in the south-western coast</a> of India. But the Katra-Banihal stretch in Jammu and Kashmir is taking a toll on his reputation.<br />
<br />
Doubts are being raised over the expertise of Sreedharan as a Delhi High Court battle over the safety of the line that's already eight years behind schedule. The high court had appointed a panel headed by Sreedharan to examine plans for the 111-kilometre, Katra-Banihal stretch after <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/topic/Prashant-Bhushan">Prashant Bhushan's</a> Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) filed a PIL on the matter. The railways, rushing to finish the line in five years, has already spent more than Rs 10,000 crore over the past 13 years on the section in a politically sensitive state where the Bharatiya Janata Party is part of the governing coalition.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, even the railways has raised questions over the safety of Konkan Railways as 71 passengers, till date, have been killed since the beginning of the stretch. It also said that, "in stark comparison to Konkan line's record, there has been no casualty in the Jammu-Baramullah line", which was built in far tougher geological conditions. <br />
<br />
Sreedharan didn’t respond to any queries and has decided to respond to the court to what the railways had to say about his report or regarding the Konkan Railway. <br />
<br />
"Whatever I have to say, I will say it in the court," he told The Economic Times. About the Katra-Banihal line, he said that the court had asked advocates from both sides to tabulate what he had said in the report and what railways were saying. The court will decide, he added. <br />
<br />
Officials, on the other hand said, the Prime Minister's Office is closely monitoring progress of the Katra-Banihal line and wants the railways to take a tough stand on the case. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to have sought regular reports from the railway ministry on the line. The railways has promised the PMO that the line will be completed by 2020. <br />
<br />
"In fact, when the PM got to know that the main reason for delay of the project was the PIL, he asked attorney general Mukul Rohatgi to personally review the case. Additional solicitor general Maninder Singh has been arguing for the railways ever since," an official told the financial daily.<br />
<br />
The Sreedharan committee submitted its report in February, stating "the biggest concern regarding the existing alignment is the poor survivability of the tunnels, bridges and cuttings against the threats of landslides, earthquakes, and the security risks arising out of the nearness of the line to the LoC (Line of Control)". The railways dismissed the report's conclusions. <br />
<br />
"The committee had no topographic sheets to study, no geological, geotechnical, slope stability or seismic study reports to study about a paper alignment which is not even properly marked on paper," it said. "Therefore, the conclusions of the committee are mere conjectures, fallacious, specious and delusive statements." <br />
<br />
It said none of the committee members had visited the site. "Therefore, the committee had to suggest that the proposed alignment in the report is only a 'paper alignment'," the railways said, adding that "the existing alignment is a well-researched, well-investigated line where work is progressing successfully without any mishaps or problems." <br />
<br />
The railways also said the committee did not hold discussions with officials and international experts working on the project. "The committee did not consider the voluminous documentation provided by the project team. The committee did not allow presentations from experts, and it did not provide any technical justification and logic supported by any calculations or analysis in support of its paper alignment," it told the court. <br />
<br />
The Railway Board was the sole authority competent to take decisions, including track alignment. <br />
<br />
Asking the court to dismiss the PIL, the railways said that if "such administrative decisions continue to be challenged, it would open a Pandora's Box, making other infrastructure projects prone to challenge and scrutiny thereby affecting the progress of work and as a consequence affecting development of the country at the instance of vested interests."<br />
 <br />
 <br />

The man who created India’s
most lucrative Metro project, E Sreedharan’s credibility is under
doubt!

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monkey_Sam_Before_The_Flight_On_Little_Joe_2.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></p><p class="caption">Monkeys have a history of <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> travel.</p></div><p></p></div>TEHRAN, <keyword id="41896" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Iran">Iran</keyword> (AP) - Iran said Saturday it has successfully sent a <keyword id="57812" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Monkey">monkey</keyword> into space for a second time, part of an ambitious program aimed at manned space flight.</p>
<p>Iran's state TV said that the launch of the rocket dubbed Pajohesh, or Research in Farsi, was Iran's first use of liquid fuel and reached a height of 120 kilometers (72 miles). It said the monkey, named Fargam or Auspicious, was returned to earth safely.</p>
<p>The TV showed the rocket blasting off and then showed the monkey, strapped snugly into a seat, staring at people clapping to celebrate its safe return. The report said Fargam's capsule parachuted safely to earth after detaching from the rocket in a mission that lasted 15 minutes.</p>
<p>Iran frequently claims technological breakthroughs that are impossible to independently verify. The Islamic Republic has said it seeks to send an astronaut into space as part of an ambitious aerospace program.</p>
<p>"The launch of Pajohesh is another long step getting the Islamic Republic of Iran closer to sending a man into space," the official IRNA news agency said.</p>
<p>State TV said scientists were able to monitor and measure signals coming from the rocket, including Fargam's vital signs, during the flight.</p>
<p>Iran said that it sent its first monkey into space in January, reaching the same height of 120 kilometers (72 miles).</p>
<p>For Iran, its aerospace program is a source of national pride. It's also one of the pillars of Iran's aspirations to be seen as the technological hub for Islamic and developing countries.</p>
<p>The U.S. and its allies worry that technology from the space program could also be used to develop long-range missiles that could potentially be armed with nuclear warheads.</p>
<p>In the January mission, one of two official packages of photos of the simian space traveler depicted the wrong monkey, causing some international observers to wonder whether the monkey had died in space or that the launch didn't go well.</p>
<p>But Iranian officials later said one set of pictures showed an archive photo of one of the alternate monkeys. They said three to five monkeys are simultaneously tested for such a flight and two or three are chosen for the launch. Finally, the one that is best suited for the mission and isn't stressed is chosen for the voyage.</p>
<p>The Islamic Republic has not revealed where the rocket launch took place, but it has a major satellite launch complex near Semnan, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) east of Tehran.</p>
<p>Iran says it wants to put its own satellites into orbit to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation, improve telecommunications and expand military surveillance of the region.</p>
<div class="nc_footer">
<p>Copyright (2013) <keyword id="176712" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Associated-Press">Associated Press</keyword>. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.</p>
</div>
<p></p>

Iran Says It Sent Another Monkey Into Space

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>Rhetoric between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has escalated.</strong></li><li><strong>In response, North Korea's foreign minister reportedly suggested the nation may soon detonate the "most powerful" hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific.</strong></li><li><strong>No other details were provided, but at face value, this suggests the blast could be 1,000 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bombing.</strong></li><li><strong>Atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons can lead to multiple dangerous scenarios.</strong></li></ul><p>North Korea may be planning a one of the most powerful nuclear explosions in history.</p><p>Ring Yong Ho, the foreign minister of the isolated nation, reportedly told journalists that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is considering such a test blast.</p><p>"It could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific," Ri told reporters at the United Nations in New York on Thursday, according to <a href="http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2017/09/22/0401000000AEN20170922004700315.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a story</a> by South Korea's Yonhap News Agency. "We have no idea about what actions could be taken as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong Un."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The suggestion came in response to bellicose rhetoric exchanged between US President Donald Trump and Jong Un.<p>In <a href="http://time.com/4947942/trump-totally-destroy-threatens-north-korea-un-speech-transcript/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a speech</a> before the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump called Jong Un a suicidal "rocket man" and threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea if the US is "forced to defend itself or its allies." Jong Un <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/kim-jong-un-responds-to-trump-north-korea-un-2017-9">allegedly responded</a> with a written statement, in which he called Trump a "mentally deranged US <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-does-dotard-mean-2017-9">dotard</a>" and said that "a frightened dog barks louder."</p><p>Many experts have denounced Trump's speech, suggesting his words could provoke Jong Un to take dramatic action.</p><p>"Trump is basically creating audience costs for Kim to back down," <a href="http://www.miis.edu/about/newsroom/experts/jlewis" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jeffrey Lewis</a>, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2017/9/20/16340392/trump-north-korea-unga-totally-destroy-speech" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told Vox</a>. "If you dare Kim, it creates pressure for him to respond with his own provocation."</p><p>North Korea has set off several <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-hydrogen-bomb-test-evidence-2017-9">powerful nuclear test blasts</a> in recent years, but they all occurred deep inside a mountain. A nuclear explosion in the air, on the ground, underwater, or in space has not happened in decades.</p><p>If the nation sets off an above-ground nuclear explosion - and the most powerful ever detonated in the Pacific - the Cold War's rich history of test blasts suggests what might happen.</p><h2>Why atmospheric nuclear tests are dangerous</h2><p>The US, Russia, China, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-weapons-stockpiles-world-map-2017-8">other countries</a> have set off more than 2,000 nuclear test blasts <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/animated-map-of-every-nuclear-bomb-explosion-ever-2016-6">since 1945</a>.</p><p>More than 500 of these explosions occurred on soil, in space, on barges, or underwater. But most of these happened early in the Cold War - before the&#xa0;risks to innocent people and the environment were well-understood. (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-test-ban-treaty-countries-2015-10">Nearly all countries</a> now ban nuclear testing.)</p><p>The problem with nuclear test explosions is that they create <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-survive-nuclear-attack-fallout-radiation-2017-6">radioactive fallout</a>. Space detonations come with their own risks, including a more widespread <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nukes-electromagnetic-pulse-electronics-2017-5">electromagnetic pulse</a>.&#xa0;</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Only a fraction of a nuclear weapon's core is turned into energy during an explosion; the rest is irradiated, melted, and turned into fine particles. This creates a small amount of fallout that can be lofted into the atmosphere and spread around.<p>But the risk of fallout vastly increases close to the ground or water. There, a nuclear explosion can suck up dirt, debris, water, and other materials, creating many tons of radioactive fallout - and this material rises high into the atmosphere, where it drifts for hundreds of miles.</p><p>This kind of&#xa0;Cold War-era fallout killed scores of innocent people in the Pacific, including Japanese fishermen, and is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-explosion-fallout-cancer-health-effects-2017-8">still causing cancer and health problems around the world today</a>.</p><h2>Where and how big?</h2><p>Ri did not specify where or how high its hypothetical Pacific "H-bomb" test might occur. However, the foreign minister did reportedly suggest it could be the most powerful ever detonated in the Pacific.</p><p>If this is not a matter of imprecise wording, it would mean the hypothetical blast would exceed the US' strongest nuclear test ever.</p><p>On March 1, 1954, the US military set off the "Shrimp" thermonuclear device on a platform in the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands (about 2,300 miles southeast of Japan and 2,700 miles southwest of Hawaii).</p><p>This was part of the US military's Castle Bravo test series, and the blast was equivalent to exploding 15 million tons of TNT, or roughly 1,000 times as powerful the US attack on Hiroshima that inflicted some <a href="http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/cab/200708230009.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">150,000 casualties</a>.</p><p><br>While the military considered Shrimp and Bravo a success, its repercussions were disastrous. Researchers underestimated the device's explosive power by nearly three-fold - and many were nearly killed when an artificial earthquake shook their concrete observation bunker 20 miles away.</br></p><p>Author and film producer Eric Schlosser, writing in his book "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion/dp/0143125788">Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety</a>", captures the raw power of the blast through the perspective of scientist Bernard O'Keefe:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"About ten seconds after Shrimp exploded, the underground bunker seemed to be moving. But that didn't make any sense. The concrete bunker was anchored to the island, and the walls were three feet thick.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"'Is this building moving or am I getting dizzy?' another scientist asked. 'My God, it is,' O'Keefe said. 'It's moving!'</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"O'Keefe began to feel nauseated, as though he were seasick, and held on to a workbench as objects slid around the room. The bunker was rolling and shaking, he later recalled, 'like it was resting on a bowl of jelly.' The shock wave from the explosion, traveling through the ground, had reached them faster than the blast wave passing through the air."</p><p>The scientists ultimately escaped alive, but Marshall Islanders located 100 miles from the blast were not so lucky.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Shrimp's four-mile-wide fireball vaporized about 200 billion tons of Bikini Atoll coral reef, turning much of it into radioactive fallout that spread all over the world. The worst of it sprinkled over atolls to the east, killing many people from radiation sickness.<p>Today, the 250-foot-deep, 1-mile-wide crater left by the blast is visible from space.</p><p>If North Korea decides to blow up a hydrogen or thermonuclear device - and the most powerful in the Pacific - we could only hope it is not close to the ground.</p><h2>Missile or no missile?</h2><p>All of these scenarios assume North Korea sets off a thermonuclear device in a controlled way - via airplane, barge, balloon, or some kind of stationary platform.</p><p>But the risk to people also largely depends on whether or not North Korea launches a nuclear warhead on an <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-intercontinental-ballistic-missiles-work-north-korea-2017-7">intercontinental ballistic missile</a> or a shorter-range rocket, such as one launched from a submarine.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>If successful, such a missile test would show North Korea has miniaturized its weapons. And if the blast appears to be caused by a hydrogen bomb, it would show North Korea could pull off a devastating thermonuclear strike on US soil.</p><p>But missiles are prone to failure in multiple ways, especially those in early development. A North Korean ICBM tipped with a nuclear warhead might miss its target by a significant distance, or explode en route. This could lead to detonation in an unintended place and altitude.</p><p>This is especially true if the missile has no self-destruct capability - ICBMs maintained by the US don't. In that case, only hacking the missile's software in mid-air, or <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-icbm-intercept-gmd-north-korea-decoy-salvo-2017-5">destroying it with another weapon</a>, could stop the launch.</p><p>"The stakes and heat in this conflict have not been this high since the Korean War," Tristan Webb, a senior analyst for NK News, said in <a href="https://www.nknews.org/2017/09/north-korea-may-test-h-bomb-in-pacific-foreign-minister">a story</a> published by the outlet on Friday. "Kim Jong Un said in July that the ... showdown was entering its final phase. He appears psychologically prepared for conflict."</p><div><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:54%"></div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-weapons-deadly-evolution-power-military-video-animation-2017-3">This animation shows how terrifyingly powerful nuclear weapons have become</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Here's what could happen if North Korea sets off a huge nuclear explosion in the Pacific Ocean

<p><table class="image-container float_right" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"></div><p class="source">The Economist</p></td></tr></table><keyword id="1334" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="China">China</keyword> wants more nuclear plants than anyone else. Will it build them safely?</p>
<p>EARLIER this month work began at a big construction site in Shandong province, south-east of Beijing. In a country overflowing with infrastructure projects, that seems unremarkable. Except the workers are restarting construction of a nuclear plant using a radical new design developed by Beijing’s Tsinghua University. This showcase of "indigenous innovation" is the clearest signal yet that China’s <keyword id="43462" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nuclear-power">nuclear power</keyword> is about to take off again.</p>
<p>Before 2011 China’s leaders were dead keen on it, hoping to raise nuclear’s share of the country’s electricity mix from less than 2%. They saw it as central to <keyword id="6357014" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="energy">energy</keyword> and climate strategy, and a future export platform. Official plans called for expanding from just 10 gigawatts of capacity in 2010 to as much as 200 gigawatts by 2030.</p>
<p>Then came Japan’s Fukushima disaster. China prudently put a halt to nuclear licensing and construction, including at Shandong, pending a full safety review. As this process stretched on and on, critics of nuclear power dared hope. Perhaps the leadership, unwilling to risk a nasty accident, would end the programme? Some greens dreamed that subsidies would be redirected to solar and wind technologies.</p>
<p>Nowhere is the nuclear dilemma as tricky as in China. Nuclear plants are costly to build and difficult to run safely. But they also promise reliable power with no air pollution or greenhouse gases. That is tantalising in a country addicted to coal: even with its ambitious plans, less than a tenth of China’s generating capacity would come from nuclear power.</p>
<p>In the end, China’s leadership went for nuclear. In October the State Council gave long-awaited approval for projects to proceed. That means more are now under way in China than in any country (see chart). The sheer number raises worries about safety. After all, Chinese remember all too well a horrific crash in 2011 on their high-speed railway. To blame was too much zeal for indigenous innovation (as opposed to tested international designs), too much corruption, and too little attention paid to safety. A mad dash to nuclear power could repeat those mistakes.</p>
<p>In fairness, it seems officials took the safety review seriously. The restarted nuclear programme will unfurl more slowly than had originally been planned, with a less ambitious target (only 130-140 gigawatts of installed capacity now seem likely by 2030). The officials have cancelled projects located in inland regions prone to earthquakes and short of water, and are increasing training for operators and funding for regulators.</p>
<p>What is more, officials are insisting that newly licensed plants adhere to higher "generation three" standards. Many current plants are of an older design that requires electric pumps for cooling; notoriously, these failed at Fukushima after the tsunami. Newer plants, for example those made by America’s Westinghouse and France’s Areva, have "passive" safety features, such as gravity-driven cooling, that should work even during power cuts.</p>
<p>The Shandong showpiece aside, industry experts hope China will now favour imported over homemade technology, at least until the local engineers can prove the safety of their designs. That may be a blow to native pride, but it is probably good news for foreign vendors--as well as for ordinary Chinese.</p>
<p>Click <a href="http://www.economist.com/products/subscribe/CUR22/noreg">here</a> to subscribe to <keyword id="425741" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="The-Economist">The Economist</keyword></p>
<p></p>

China's Nuclear Power Is About To Take Off Again

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source">NASA</p></div><p></p></div>MANILA, <keyword id="3750" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Philippines">Philippines</keyword> (AP) - The strongest <keyword id="46590" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Typhoon">typhoon</keyword> this year slammed into the Philippines on Friday, setting off landslides, knocking out power in several provinces and cutting communications in the country's central region of island provinces. Four people died.</p>
<p>Telephone lines appeared down as it was difficult to get through to the landfall site 650 kilometers (405 miles) southeast of Manila where Typhoon Haiyan - one of the strongest typhoons ever - slammed into the southern tip of Samar island before barreling on to Leyte Island.</p>
<p>Two people were electrocuted in storm-related accidents, one person was killed by a fallen tree and another was struck by lightning, official reports said.</p>
<p>Close to 720,000 people had been evacuated from towns and villages in the typhoon's path across the central Philippines, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said. Among them were thousands of residents of Bohol who had been camped in tents and other makeshift shelters after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit the island province last month.</p>
<p>Southern Leyte Gov. Roger Mercado said 31,000 people were evacuated in his landslide-prone mountainous province before the super typhoon struck, knocking out power, setting off small landslides that blocked roads in rural areas, uprooting trees and ripping roofs off houses around his residence.</p>
<p>The dense clouds and heavy rains made the day seem almost as dark as night, he said.</p>
<p>"When you're faced with such a scenario, you can only pray, and pray and pray," Mercado told The Associated Press by telephone, adding that his town mayors have not called in to report any major damage.</p>
<p>"I hope that means they were spared and not the other way around," he said. "My worst fear is there will be many massive loss of lives and property."</p>
<p>Television images from Tacloban city on Leyte Island showed a street under knee-deep floodwater carrying debris that had been blown down by the fierce winds. Tin roofing sheets ripped from buildings were flying above the street.</p>
<p>Visibility was so poor that only the silhouette of a local reporter could be seen through the driving rain.</p>
<p>Weather officials said that Haiyan had sustained winds at 235 kilometers (147 miles) per hour, with gusts of 275 kph (170 mph) when it made landfall. That makes it the strongest typhoon this year, said Aldczar Aurelio of the government's weather bureau.</p>
<p>Gener Quitlong, another weather forecaster, said the typhoon was not losing much of its strength because there is no large land mass to slow it down since the region is comprised of islands with no tall mountains.</p>
<p>The typhoon - the 24th serious storm to hit the Philippines this year - is forecast to blow toward the South China Sea on Saturday, heading toward Vietnam.</p>
<p>Jeff Masters, a former hurricane meteorologist who is meteorology director at the private firm Weather Underground, said the storm had been poised to be the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded at landfall. He warned of "catastrophic damage."</p>
<p>But he said the Philippines might get a small break because the storm is so fast moving that flooding from heavy rains - usually the cause of most deaths from typhoons in the Philippines - may not be as bad.</p>
<p>As it approached the Philippines, the storm was one of the strongest on record.</p>
<p>The U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center said shortly before the typhoon made landfall that its maximum sustained winds were 314 kilometers per hour (195 mph), with gusts up to 379 kilometers per hour (235 mph). Those measurements are different than local weather data because the U.S. Navy center measures the average wind speed for 1 minute while local forecasters measure average for 10 minutes.</p>
<p>Hurricane Camille, a 1969 storm, had wind speeds that reached 305 kph (190 mph) at landfall in the United States, Masters said.</p>
<p>Officials in Cebu province have shut down electric service to the northern part of the province to avoid electrocutions in case power pylons are toppled, said assistant regional civil defense chief Flor Gaviola.</p>
<p>President Benigno Aquino III assured the public of war-like preparations, with three C-130 air force cargo planes and 32 military helicopters and planes on standby, along with 20 navy ships.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.</p>
<div class="nc_footer">
<p>Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.</p>
</div>
<p></p>

Super Typhoon Haiyan Slams The Philippines - Over 700,000 People Forced To Evacuate 

<p>Every so often, I write about how Obamacare transfers wealth from the healthy to the sick, and while that's a just thing, we can't necessarily <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-if-you-like-your-plan-cant-be-fixed-2013-11">expect the healthy to be happy about it</a>.</p>
<p>When I write this, I tend to get responses from liberals arguing that transfers from the healthy to the sick aren't a policy choice; they're just an obvious characteristic of insurance:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/jbarro">@jbarro</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/jbouie">@jbouie</a> ALL ins works that way-good drivers pay for bad drivers; living ppl pay for dead ppl (life ins); healthy pay for sick.</p>
- RealTrumanDem (@RealTrumanDem) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealTrumanDem/statuses/401412574337437696">November 15, 2013</a></blockquote>

<p>This objection is wrong, and it reflects a misconception that most people have about insurance. This misconception obscures a key policy difference between conservatives and liberals that drives the debate over health care.</p>
<p>All insurance is a transfer to people who <em>experience</em> losses from people who do not. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><keyword id="6362363" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="health-insurance">Health insurance</keyword> is special in that it is a transfer to people who have high </span><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">expected</em><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> losses from people who do not. Liberals think this special feature is desirable; conservatives are uneasy about it.</span></p>
<p>Let's look at a simple property insurance example. Imagine a state where 50% of homes are located on the ocean and 50% are not. The oceanfront homes have a 10% chance of storm damage in a given year and the other homes have a 1% chance. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Storm damage always results in a loss of $50,000 and the insurer has a profit margin of 10%.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">By my calculations, oceanfront homeowners in this state will pay property insurance premiums of $5,500 and non-oceanfront homeowners will pay $550.</span></p>
<p>This insurance market will, in any given year, transfer money to the homeowners hit by storms from the homeowners who escape storms. But it will not, in the long run, transfer wealth from low-risk homeowners to high-risk homeowners. Over time, homeowners on the ocean can be expected to pay 91% of all premiums and make 91% of all claims.</p>
<p>Health insurance does not work like this. A variety of subsidies, regulations and norms conspire to ensure that people with high expected health costs - the equivalent of the oceanfront homeowners - pay premiums that are less than their expected claims. Their claims costs are cross subsidized by healthy people - the equivalent of inland homeowners - who pay far more in premiums than they can be expected to make in claims.</p>
<p>There's a challenge with any insurance market like this: How do you get the healthy people (or the inland homeowners) to buy insurance that's a bad deal for them? In the case of health insurance, we use a pile of subsidies, regulations and norms to goad the low risks into overpaying so they can subsidize the high risks.</p>
<p>We give out generous tax subsidies to buy health insurance, require employers to offer group health insurance on roughly the same terms across their employee populations, provide direct government health insurance to the old and the poor, and (under Obamacare) add new subsidies and penalties to push people into insurance. This stuff is all enormously expensive, but it gets most everybody covered.</p>
<p>As insurance markets go, health insurance is totally weird. But it's not totally random. Health insurance has to be unlike other insurance for a few reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">People choose to live on the ocean; they don't choose to have a chronic health condition. So, it's a lot harder to say it's fair to charge higher premiums to people with higher expected costs. (Though, as an aside, this distinction doesn't stop lawmakers from hurricane-prone coastal areas from arguing that property insurance should be subsidized for their constituents.)</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In the case of auto insurance, higher premiums for dangerous drivers are, among other things, a mechanism for encouraging people to drive safely. It's not obvious how much we want to try to induce better health by charging higher premiums to the sick, though employers are doing a little bit of this by charging higher rates to smokers or overweight people who do not engage in fitness programs.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">People can face unexpected changes in health status that make annual insurance contracts less workable for health insurance than other kinds of insurance. <span>Your home is not likely to be suddenly diagnosed with hurricane or earthquake risk.</span> But if you're diagnosed with diabetes or HIV/AIDS or cancer, your expected lifetime path of medical claims will suddenly rise, and so will the premiums insurers would want from you. Current laws try to work around this with guaranteed renewability: Your insurer has to keep renewing your health insurance without a special premium increase even if your health status worsens. But this doesn't help you if you want to change insurers or have to move to another state. Addressing this problem requires some sort of redistribution toward the newly sick.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="line-height: 22.5px;">So, there are good reasons for health insurance to be weird, and to include transfers toward people with high expected losses. But conservatives are uneasy about using health insurance to shift the cost of expected losses for some valid reasons. </span></p>
<ul>
<li>There's a reason we don't prepay for most goods and services through insurance structures: It encourages people to overconsume, since they don't pay (or don't pay much) at the margin for what they do consume.</li>
<li>While health status isn't chosen, it's also not entirely a matter of luck. Should we worry that shielding people from health cost increases will encourage unhealthy behaviors like smoking and obesity?</li>
<li>How much do we really want to use public policy to shield people from losses due to factors beyond their control? For example, the ACA is designed to prevent premium variation between men and women, even though healthy women tend to have greater health care costs than healthy men. But often, similar variations go unaddressed or only partially addressed by public policy. Childbirth is more disruptive to women's careers than men's, and how much the government should do to compensate women for this is a topic of major policy contention in lots of countries. Short people make less money than tall people, but we don't have a program of fiscal transfers to the short. I think premium equalization for men and women is good policy, but it's not as obvious as liberals often make it out to be.</li>
</ul>

Here's Why Health Insurance Is So Weird

<p><div class="image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source">Chris McGrath / Getty</p></div></div></p>
<p>One of the strongest storms ever recorded has devastated parts of the <keyword id="3750" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Philippines">Philippines</keyword>, and relief is slow to arrive</p>
<p>LONG accustomed to fearsome storms, floods and earthquakes, Filipinos are usually stoical in the face of natural disasters. Yet the sheer magnitude of the super- typhoon that ripped through the middle of the archipelago on November 8th was unprecedented, with sustained winds of 250 kilometres per hour (160mph). The scale of the damage left in its wake was shocking. President Benigno Aquino declared the devastation a "national calamity".</p>
<p>Some towns hit by the storm may never wholly recover. For now, questions are being asked about whether the country could have been better prepared, as well as what might be done to mitigate the impact of severe storms that whip in--recently, with greater frequency--off the Pacific Ocean. Many Filipinos note that this storm hit just as the latest round of UN-sponsored climate-change talks was getting under way in Warsaw in Poland. Their government insists that man-made climate change is heightening the risk of typhoons, but scientists are not so sure (see "Cyclones and climate change: The new normal?").</p>
<p><div class="image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source">The <keyword id="6365396" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Economist">Economist</keyword></p></div></div></div>Some of the regions hit by Typhoon Haiyan, or Yolanda as it was called in the Philippines, are remote. Almost a week after it struck, a proper assessment of the damage is still being pieced together. The government says that more than 2,300 people have been killed. The figure will rise as more bodies are recovered in the worst-hit places, such as Tacloban on the island of Leyte. The government says about 7m people were affected by Haiyan; the UN says as many as 11m. About 600,000 have been made homeless.</p>
<p>Early estimates of the economic cost are about $15 billion. This relatively low figure reflects the fact that Haiyan laid waste to some of the poorest regions of the country. Their backwardness also helps account for the slowness of the rescue effort in many places. Roads and airports were hardly first-class before; now Haiyan has destroyed much of the infrastructure. Aid is being flown in quite easily to the well-developed tourist hub of Cebu. But UN agencies and NGOs are struggling to shift desperately needed food and medicines on to places where they are really needed.</p>
<p>Villagers made homeless by the disaster line the main coastal highway that twists and turns from Cebu towards Daanbantayan, at the far northern end of Cebu island. Amid the devastation of felled trees, flattened crops, toppled power lines and houses blown away, children hold up crudely written cardboard signs: "Please Help", "We Need Food".</p>
<p>At the town hall in Daanbantayan, the mayor, Augusto Corro, says that relief is arriving for the stricken people but that it is "not enough". All the area's 86,000 inhabitants have been affected by the disaster, he says, and need food, water, shelter and medicine. More than nine-tenths of homes there have been damaged or destroyed. The typhoon killed nine people in Daanbantayan and injured 50 others.</p>
<p>A relief operation has seen the authorities distribute rice, bottled water and canned foods. But Margie Flores arrived at Daanbantayan's town hall early on the morning of November 13th to find she was too late. All the food had gone. "We are very hungry," she says. In Malingin, on the fringes of Daanbantayan, a lorry arrives with relief supplies. Villagers jostle for plastic bags of rice and bottled water. An official, Francisco Rosalejos, says there is enough to feed 500 people, which is only half the local population. Most, he explains, are farmers. If the weather holds out, and farmers can get hold of seed, then they can quickly replant their flattened fields. If not, Mr Rosalejos does not know how the villagers will carry on.</p>
<p>In Tacloban, across the strait from Cebu, the situation is more desperate. Haiyan flattened nearly the whole town of several hundred thousand people; one aid worker described it as "worse than hell". Five days after the typhoon, there is still little in the way of food and clean water, and few medical supplies are coming in. As a consequence, thousands have been trooping to the wrecked airport outside the city in the hope of getting out. Day after day, most are disappointed. Meanwhile, the risks rise of typhoid, cholera and hepatitis breaking out, thanks to an absence of sanitation or clean water. Bodies are rotting in the streets, and the hospitals have been all but wrecked. The survivors' misery is compounded by yet more rain from the next in a train of tropical depressions.</p>
<p>Survivors also fear looters and criminals, some of whom are reported to have broken out of jail. In many places law and order broke down after Haiyan struck. Police forces and local-government officials suffered in the typhoon as much as anyone else. In Palo in Leyte province, only 34 of 983 local policemen are reported to have shown up for duty after the storm. There are reports of food convoys and warehouses being sacked by armed gangs--as well as by desperately hungry people. More police and troops are flying in.</p>
<p>Amid the carnage, questions have been raised as to why a part of the world so prone to terrible storms could have suffered so much. Surely the authorities could have done better, especially with nearly two days' notice of a spectacular storm on its way?</p>
<p>Comparisons are being made with Vietnam, where Haiyan swept after it had finished with the Philippines. In Vietnam Haiyan did far less damage than predicted. Some 14 people were killed, but all of them during the course of storm preparations. One pre-storm assessment said that the typhoon would affect 6.5m of Vietnam's 90m people.</p>
<p>Certainly, it had weakened as it churned through the South China Sea. But good preparations were also important. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies praised the Vietnamese government's evacuation of nearly 800,000 people from coastal provinces. The UN also pointed out that the prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, who seems personally to have overseen the preparations for Haiyan, wisely declared the highest level of alert, while mobilising senior officials to help with the response to the disaster.</p>
<p>Yet some authorities in the Philippines deserve praise, too, for their immediate reaction to the storm warnings. About 1m people were evacuated, usually to buildings that were considered to be safe. The trouble was that the typhoon's sheer force overwhelmed any preparations. Take Tacloban, where thousands got to a big indoor stadium, considered to be stormproof. Sure enough, the specially reinforced roof stayed on. But people were killed instead by a 5-metre (16-foot) high surge of water which flooded the structure. In Tacloban the storm surge was like a tsunami. Nobody seems to have foreseen that it could do so much damage.</p>
<p>When Haiyan landed at Guiuan, gusts hit 315kph, which some consider to be the highest ever recorded. Little may have survived in Guiuan, still largely inaccessible.</p>
<p>If no one had really prepared for this scale of natural assault, many experts think more will come in future. The Western Pacific has the highest frequency of tropical cyclones north of the equator. The Asian Development Bank, for one, thinks that, whereas the average number of tropical cyclones a year has not risen significantly when measured over several decades, the severity of individual events has been increasing because of rising sea and air temperatures. Sea levels in the region have also been rising. For cities such as Manila, the capital of the Philippines, the risks are grave, since the city is also sinking because of the extraction of groundwater and the weight of foundations. It all increases the risk of lethal flooding.</p>
<p>The rickety, decentralised and often corrupt Philippine political system does not help, either. Vietnam's Communist government is often chided for its tight repression and the absence of democracy. But when a storm hits, top-heavy bureaucracies, with help from the armed forces, can successfully get coastal communities out of harm's way. In the Philippines, an archipelago spread out over 7,100 islands, the central government's writ rarely extends very far. Indeed, it breaks down almost completely in the southern region of Mindanao, where Muslim insurgents have been in open revolt for decades (although peace negotiations are now under way). Well-meaning plans drawn up at the centre are often ignored, and local corruption also takes its slice of centrally allocated funds. Many doubt whether all the aid about to flood in from overseas will reach the people who most need help. The question is whether Filipinos will accept the political way of doing things once the worst of Haiyan's consequences are past, or start to ask more of the politicians in charge.</p>
<p>Click <a href="https://subscriptions.economist.com/nwcd">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist</p>
<p></p>

You Searched For "earthquake prone country" and got 8 results

The man who created India’s most lucrative Metro project, E Sreedharan’s credibility is under doubt!

BI India Bureau

Iran Says It Sent Another Monkey Into Space

AP

Here's what could happen if North Korea sets off a huge nuclear explosion in the Pacific Ocean

Dave Mosher

China's Nuclear Power Is About To Take Off Again

The Economist

Super Typhoon Haiyan Slams The Philippines - Over 700,000 People Forced To Evacuate

Oliver Teves, AP

Here's Why Health Insurance Is So Weird

Josh Barro

Typhoon Haiyan Damage Is 'Worse Than Hell'

The Economist

How The US Dollar Staged An Incredible Comeback And Humiliated The Doomsayers

Matthew Boesler,Rob Wile