I almost can’t imagine this.
Can you?

Two trains pulling cars loaded with gas and gasoline collided in North Korea today, about 30 miles from the border.

3 thousand Koreans, and Chinese are reported killed and injured.
All international phone lines in North Korea have been cut off to ‘prevent’ the news from spreading.
The media in North Korea isn’t reporting it.
The BBC is asking for readers and listeners in the area to send information.
The explosion occurred around 1 pm (it is about 3 am in North Korea now) and was reported by South Korea’s YTN television.
Yonhap Media in South Korea has an english language service.
Kim Jong-il had passed through the station returning from China in his armoured train.

In the last 20 years most large train disasters have killed an average of 300 people.
It is entirely possible 3 thousand people are dead and dying today in North Korea and hours after the initial event, very little is known.

SARS
China, which was forced to take a more open disclosure policy after last year’s SARS outbreak has acknowledged two confirmed cases of SARS in separate parts of the country.
8 thousand people contacted the illness last year and 779 died.
The outbreak died down last July, with China reporting four cases December and January.
The Ontario government released it’s interm report on how SARS was handled in Canada, and it is scathing. The public health system was ill-prepared.
The report lays out 21 points to address systemic failures.
Communication is so critical and I wonder if the medical system will ever be able to change the mentality.
The bottom line is, we are not ready for a pandemic, nor will we cope when one occurs.

Canada, the US and Iraq
Paul Martin is heading to Washington next week with a proposal for President Bush. It will be interesting to see how this proposal for Iraq reconstruction is received by Iraq, the world and the two neighbours.

Martin’s plan — which at the moment carries no price tag — depends heavily on Washington’s success in ceding more responsibility for Iraq to the United Nations in preparation for elections now expected early next year.

Along with the highly controversial June 30 transition to an interim administration, elections will require massive, multinational support for a country with little capacity to deal with explosive religious and regional differences exacerbated by years of tyranny and now by the U.S. occupation.

Those weaknesses play to Canada’s strengths.

With its own history of managing a complex, pluralistic federation rife with language and cultural friction, Canada is uniquely placed to support Iraq’s efforts to create institutions to cope with similar, if far more extreme, problems. Equally important, as a former colony and now as a moderate, middle power Canada is free of most of the suspicion that limits Washington’s ability to restore law and order in Iraq as well as to promote democracy.