Wonderful life

Ed Hardy Bags Dulmatin is the alleged mastermind behind the Bali bombings

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has confirmed that the terror suspect Dulmatin was killed in a police raid in Jakarta.

Indonesian security forces said they had killed three suspected militants in two raids on Tuesday.

But they could not confirm that Dulmatin, alleged mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombings, was among those killed.

Mr Yudhoyono is on a three-day trip to neighbouring Australia.

The raids were said to be linked to an ongoing operation against militants in Aceh province that has brought a number of arrests.

Most wanted

"We can confirm that one of those that were killed was Mr Dulmatin, one of the top south-east Asian terrorists that we have been looking for," Mr Yudhoyono said through an interpreter in a luncheon speech at Australia's parliament.

The killing of Dulmatin will be greeted with particular enthusiasm in Australia - half of the 202 casualties in the Bali bombings were Australian.

The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, had earlier praised Indonesia's efforts to dismantle terrorist networks.

He was speaking in Canberra at a joint news conference with Mr Yudhoyono.

Mr Rudd described the Indonesian operation as very professional and significant.

Indonesia's anti-terrorist forces have launched a series of raids nationwide after the discovery of an alleged Islamist militant training camp in the province of Aceh last month.

Security forces in Aceh have been targeting militants recently

The BBC's Indonesia correspondent Karishma Vaswani says Dulmatin has been an elusive target. A few years ago, the Phillippines army said he had been injured during a gun battle, but no one could say for sure that he had been seriously hurt.

DNA tests were carried out on a body found in the southern Philippines in 2008, but it was confirmed not to be his.

DNA tests had also been necessary to prove beyond doubt that Noordin Mohamed Top, at the time Indonesia's most-wanted Islamist militant, had been killed in September 2009.

Troubling?

Security analysts say that while the killing of Dulmatin is a significant coup for Indonesian authorities, and shows they are doing their job, it is also a troubling sign that terror networks in Indonesia could be seeing a possible rejuvenation.

Our correspondent says that would be a big concern for Indonesian police who had hoped that their efforts to stamp out terrorism in the archipelago over the last few years had been successful.

The latest raids come less than two weeks before the visit to Indonesia of US President Barack Obama.

Indonesia has made significant inroads in recent years into dismantling the leadership of Jemaah Islamiah.

The police have also been recently engaged in an operation targeting Aceh militants.

A total of 14 people have been charged with plotting to launch terrorist attacks.

Those charged are believed by officials to be members of a previously unknown terror group.

But seizures in raids included DVDs on the Bali bombings.

Police have been investigating possible links between the militants and Jemaah Islamiyah, which was blamed by the authorities for the Bali attacks.

The shoot-out took place in Pamulang, west of the capital Ed Hardy Belts

Indonesian security forces say they have killed a suspected militant during a shoot-out on the outskirts of the capital Jakarta.

The raid was thought to be linked to an ongoing operation against militants in Aceh province that has brought a number of arrests.

Unconfirmed reports say the man killed may have been Dulmatin, a senior member of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) group.

He is wanted over the Bali bomb attacks in 2002 that killed 202 people.

'Big name'

The shoot-out took place at a two-storey building in Pamulang city west of the capital, local media reported.

If it's true that it's Dulmatin, we will be very grateful that the most-wanted terrorist has been killed. It will be a big relief to us Ansyaad Mbai, Security ministry anti-terrorism chief

They said two people had been arrested in the raid.

Anti-terror police chief Tito Karnavian told media the dead man was a "big name". Police are due to hold a news conference later on Tuesday.

Dulmatin has been one of the most-wanted Indonesian militant figures. The US has offered a $10m reward for information leading to his death or arrest.

He is believed to have set off one of the two bombs in Bali on 12 October 2002. A total of 202 people died in the attacks, many of them foreign tourists.

Dulmatin had been thought to be hiding in the Philippines.

Security ministry anti-terrorism chief Ansyaad Mbai told Agence France-Presse: "If it's true that it's him, we will be very grateful that the most-wanted terrorist has been killed. It will be a big relief to us."

Officials have yet to confirm if the man killed was Dulmatin

However, there is no official confirmation Dulmatin was the man killed.

DNA tests were needed to prove beyond doubt that Indonesia's then-most-wanted Islamist militant, Noordin Mohamed Top, had been killed in September 2009.

Police thought they had killed him in a previous raid only for forensic tests to prove them wrong.

Indonesian police have been engaged in an operation recently targeting Aceh militants.

A total of 14 people have been charged with plotting to launch terrorist attacks.

Those charged are believed by officials to be members of a previously unknown terror group.

But seizures in raids included DVDs on the Bali bombings.

Police have been investigating possible links between the militants and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which was blamed by the authorities for the Bali attacks.

Ed Hardy Bags Many of the victims were cut with machetes, doctors said

Nigeria's acting President Goodluck Jonathan has ordered security forces to prevent more weapons being brought into the area around the city of Jos.

More than 100 people, many of them women and children, are believed dead after attacks in the area on Sunday.

Witnesses said the mainly Christian villages had been attacked from the surrounding hills by men with machetes.

Jos itself has been under curfew since January when at least 200 died in clashes between Christians and Muslims.

Military deployed

The attack happened before dawn on Sunday morning when gangs of men descended on several communities, centred on the village of Dogo-Nahawa, and attacked people with machetes, reports say.

A resident of Dogo-Nahawa said the attackers had fired guns as they entered the village.

"The shooting was just meant to bring people from their houses and then when people came out they started cutting them with machetes," Peter Jang told Reuters.

JOS, PLATEAU STATE Deadly riots in 2001, 2008 and 2010 City divided into Christian and Muslim areas Divisions accentuated by system of classifying people as indigenes and settlers Hausa-speaking Muslims living in Jos for decades are still classified as settlers Settlers find it difficult to stand for election Divisions also exist along party lines: Christians mostly back the ruling PDP; Muslims generally supporting the opposition ANPP

An aid worker with the Christian charity Stefanus Foundation, Mark Lipdo, said at least 100 people had been killed.

He told the BBC he went to the villages of Zot and Dogo-Nahawa after daylight on Sunday and recorded the names of 77 victims and said there were at least two dozen more bodies.

"We saw mainly those who are helpless, like small children and then the older men, who cannot run, these were the ones that were slaughtered."

He said Zot had been almost wiped out.

Other witnesses said they had also seen at least 100 bodies and a Plateau state official told Reuters news agency that more than 300 people had died.

A doctor at a hospital in Jos told news agencies that victims had been cut by machetes and burnt.

The military, which already has a presence in Jos, has sent troops to Dogo-Nahawa.

"The acting president has placed all the security forces in Plateau and neighbouring states on red alert so as to stem any cross-border dimensions to this latest conflict," Mr Jonathan's office said in a statement quoted by Reuters news agency.

He also ordered those behind the violence to be found.

Analysts say the attack seems to be in reprisal for the clashes between Christians and Muslims in January, which claimed the lives of at least 200 people and displaced thousands of others.

Hundreds of people have fled from Jos in the aftermath of the fighting, the Red Cross says.

Robin Waudo, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, told the BBC his volunteers were assisting people wounded in the latest fighting.

"We know that late this morning there was some fighting in the south part of the city and it seems like there are reprisal attacks from what happened a few weeks ago," he said.

By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News, The Woodlands, Texas

The dinosaurs were one of many groups to go extinct

An international panel of experts has strongly endorsed evidence that a space impact was behind the mass extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs.

They reached the consensus after conducting the most wide-ranging analysis yet of the evidence.

Writing in Science journal, they rule out alternative theories such as large-scale volcanism.

The analysis has been discussed at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in the US.

A panel of 41 international experts reviewed 20 years' worth of research to determine the cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) mass extinction, around 65 million years ago.

The extinction wiped out more than half of all species on the planet, including the dinosaurs, bird-like pterosaurs and large marine reptiles, clearing the way for mammals to become the dominant species on Earth.

Their review of the evidence shows that the extinction was caused by a massive asteroid or comet smashing into Earth at Chicxulub on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

'Global winter'

When the 10km-15km space rock struck the Yucatan, the explosive energy released was equivalent to 100 trillion tonnes of TNT - over a billion times more explosive than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The huge crater that remains from the event is some 180km in diameter and surrounded by a circular fault about 240km in diameter.

"You can actually trace debris right up to the rim of the crater from across the world," Co-author Dr David Kring, from the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, told BBC News.

"You can start in Europe, cross the Atlantic and it just thickens as you approach the Chicxulub impact crater."

In the new study, scientists examined the work of palaeontologists, geochemists, climate modellers, geophysicists and sedimentologists who have been gathering evidence about the K-T extinction.

They conclude that the Chicxulub space impact is the only plausible explanation for the devastation evident in geological records.

The initial impact would have triggered large-scale fires, huge earthquakes, and continental landslides which generated tsunamis.

Dr Gareth Collins, one of the review's co-authors from Imperial College London, said the asteroid hit Earth "20 times faster than a speeding bullet".

He added: "The explosion of hot rock and gas would have looked like a huge ball of fire on the horizon, grilling any living creature in the immediate vicinity that couldn't find shelter."

Dr Joanna Morgan, another co-author from Imperial, commented: "The final nail in the coffin for the dinosaurs happened when blasted material was ejected at high velocity into the atmosphere. This shrouded the planet in darkness and caused a global winter, killing off many species that couldn't adapt to this hellish environment."

The review confirms that a unique layer of debris ejected from a crater is compositionally linked to the Mexican crater and is also coincident with rocks associated at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary.

The team also says that an abundance of shocked quartz in rock layers across the world at the K-T boundary lends further weight to conclusions that a massive meteorite impact happened at the time of the mass extinction. This form of the mineral occurs when rocks have been hit very quickly by a massive force. It is only found at nuclear explosion sites and at asteroid impact sites.

"Combining all available data from different science disciplines led us to conclude that a large asteroid impact 65 million years ago in modern day Mexico was the major cause of the mass extinctions," said author Dr Peter Schulte, assistant professor at the University of Erlangen in Germany.

David Kring explained: "I have been invited to give colloquia at a number of universities across North America and I had always been surprised by the number of people who didn't think the connection was as firm as it was.

"I think it was very important for this distinguished panel of experts from around the world who have seen the evidence from their own geographic quarter to debate the issue and come to a final resolution. I think it is that international consensus that is so important in this case."

Volcanic origin?

Scientists have previously argued about whether the extinction was caused by a space impact or by volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps in India, where there were a series of super-volcanic eruptions that lasted approximately 1.5 million years.

These eruptions spewed more than 1,000,000 cubic kilometres of basaltic lava across the Deccan Traps - enough to fill the Black Sea twice. These were thought to have caused a cooling of the atmosphere and acid rain on a global scale.

Despite evidence for relatively active volcanism in the Deccan Traps at the time, marine and land ecosystems showed only minor changes within the 500,000 years before the time of the K-T mass extinction.

Furthermore, computer models and observational data suggest the release of gases such as sulphur into the atmosphere after each volcanic eruption in the Deccan Traps would have had a short-lived effect on the planet.

The panel also discounted previous studies that suggested the Chicxulub impact occurred 300,000 years prior to the mass extinction event.

Scientists estimate that this type of impact occurs on average about once every 100 million years; about five have occurred during the evolution of complex life on Earth.

The importance of Chicxulub was cemented by the announcement in 1991 of the discovery of "shocked quartz" - one of the tell-tale signs of an impact - in a 1.6km-deep drill hole from the crater.

David Kring, Alan Hildebrand and William Boynton presented their results at that year's LPSC, then held at Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Dr Kring explained that he was "elated" with the consensus about the link between Chicxulub and the K-T mass extinction.

Ed Hardy purses

The numbers of police officers and soldiers on the streets of quake-affected cities like Talcahuano have been bolstered

Chile's president has appealed for calm in the earthquake-ravaged city of Concepcion, vowing a stern response to any renewal of looting and violence.

Michelle Bachelet says 14,000 troops are now in the region, after dozens of looters were arrested.

As night fell curfews were imposed across four major urban centres in Chile, including an 18-hour curfew in one if its largest cities, Concepcion.

Some half a million people are homeless in a city now under military control.

The death toll from the 8.8-magnitude quake now stands at 795, officials say, but emergency workers also say 19 people are still unaccounted for.

One mayor, from Hualpen, near Concepcion, said many on the streets were more terrified of crime than aftershocks.

"The thugs have taken over the city. Now we are not afraid of the earthquakes, we're afraid of the criminals," Marcelo Rivera told a Chilean radio station.

Armoured vehicles have been positioned at stationed at strategic points across Concepcion and armed soldiers patrol the streets.

Groups of residents are reported to have gathered together to form vigilante groups to confront would-be looters.

'Necessary measure'

A special air route is being set up to deliver aid from the capital, Santiago, to Concepcion, 430km (270 miles) away.

When we have a catastrophe of this magnitude... the population... starts losing the sense of public order President-elect Sebastian Pinera

But security in the city remains a key concern after shops and homes were looted on Monday and police made a large number of arrests.

The deteriorating security situation in Concepcion comes despite the influx of thousands of troops to reinforce local police.

"We can say that, according what we've been told from the area, the situation in Concepcion is under control today," President Michelle Bachelet said on Tuesday.

But, she added, authorities would take any "necessary measure" to stop renewed looting.

"Our principle objective is to go and help people tackle the emergency in the disaster zone.

Detailed map of quake

"I want them [looters] to understand this and that they'll receive rigorous legal action. We will not tolerate such actions."

Many of the city's 500,000 inhabitants are short of food and have seen their water and electricity supplies cut off.

Aid agencies have yet to reach Concepcion, reports the BBC's Andy Gallacher, who has reached the city, where many people are still awaiting water, food and mattresses.

However, at least two police officers appear to be posted on every corner in the city centre, our correspondent says.

Some residents quoted by Reuters news agency said they were organising groups to defend their property.

Coastal destruction

Reports are also beginning to emerge of the scale of the devastation in other areas.

AT THE SCENE Andy Gallacher, BBC News, near Concepcion It has taken us about 15 hours of solid driving to get to the outskirts of Concepcion. The main highway is ripped and twisted all the way down from the capital, Santiago. At a military checkpoint, there are rows and rows of lorries carrying food, fresh water and other emergency supplies. It appears that there has been a complete breakdown of law and order in Chile's second city. Some of the communities on the coast near here have meanwhile not yet even been heard from. They were first hit by the earthquake, and then swept away by the tsunami.

Up to 90% of the mud-and-wood buildings in the historic centre of Curico had been destroyed or damaged, and a hospital badly damaged, BBC reporters said.

Some coastal towns and villages were also hit by giant waves after the earthquake, with some reported to have been completely destroyed.

Reports from the town of Pelluhue suggested that a series of tsunamis swept through what was a tranquil seaside resort, destroying houses and claiming many lives.

The government admits that its attempts to provide aid swiftly have been hampered by damaged roads and power cuts.

The air supply route between Santiago and Concepcion will help the authorities send more than 300 tonnes of aid, including 120 tonnes of food, to the worst-affected area of the country.

Communication problems

International aid has begun arriving. Neighbouring Argentina is flying a field hospital over the Andes to Chile and has pledged half a million litres of much-needed drinking water.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva flew to Santiago and offered his nation's support, as did US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Mrs Clinton took a consignment of satellite phones with her to Santiago after the Chilean government requested communications equipment alongside field hospitals and water purification units.

"We stand ready to help in any way that the government of Chile asks us to," said Mrs Clinton, adding: "The United States will be there to help when others leave."

After touring the disaster zone, Chilean President-elect Sebastian Pinera - who takes office on 11 March - said the situation was worse than he had expected.

"When we have a catastrophe of this magnitude, when there is no electricity and no water, the population... starts losing the sense of public order," he said.

About two million Chileans are believed to have been affected by Saturday's earthquake, the seventh most powerful on record and the worst disaster to befall Chile in 50 years.

The epicentre of the quake was 115km (70 miles) north-east of Concepcion and 325km south-west of the capital Santiago.

About 1.5 million homes in Chile have been damaged. Most of the collapsed buildings were of older design - including many historic structures.