Cuba hammered by Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike has been battering eastern Cuba with giant waves and torrential rain but it weakened slightly as it made landfall.

The Category Two storm’s maximum sustained winds are still more than 165km/h (105mph).

Some homes along the coast, where some 800,000 people have been evacuated, have been damaged beyond repair.

Earlier, Ike killed 61 people in Haiti and reportedly damaged 80% of homes on the main Turks and Caicos islands.

The Cuban Meteorology Institute said the eye of the hurricane came ashore near Punta Lucrecia in the state of Holguin about 510 miles (823km) south-east of the capital Havana.

Hurricane Ike’s predicted path

With Hurricane Gustav striking just a week ago, Cuba’s internationally acclaimed emergency services are being stretched to the limit.

Gustav caused serious damage to the western side of the island, damaging almost 100,000 homes.

“In all of Cuba’s history, we have never had two hurricanes this close together,” Jose Rubiera, head of Cuba’s meteorological service, told state TV.

Windows shatter

Ike is forecast to reach Havana early on Tuesday morning.

The storm left rubble strewn in the streets of Camaguey

A direct hit on the densely populated city of two million people with its precarious colonial buildings could be devastating, our correspondent says.

In the city of Holguin, a hotel worker named Carmela told Reuters news agency: “There is lot of worry, windows are beginning to break. There’s a lot of water, it’s raining very heavily.”

Among those evacuated before the arrival of Ike were 15,000 tourists.

RED CROSS APPEAL The charity is accepting donations to help people in the Caribbean Donations can be made on 0845 053 53 53 or via its

In the Camaguey region, in the path of the hurricane, resident Ramon Olivera was preparing to leave by motorcycle as municipal workers boarded up banks and restaurants.

“There’s no fear here but one has to be prepared – it could hit us pretty hard,” he told The Associated Press.

Haitian appeal

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, endured the onslaught of four tropical storms in a three week period.

RECENT MAJOR STORMS Hurricane Ike: September Tropical Storm Hanna: September Hurricane Gustav: August, September Tropical Storm Fay: August

Heavy rains and flooding sparked by the outer bands of the storm killed at least 61 people in Cabaret, to the north of the capital Port-au-Prince.

“The whole village is flooded,” said local civil protection official Moise Jean-Pierre. “The death toll could go higher.”

The destruction in Haiti has been described as catastrophic.

Police said 500 people were confirmed dead from recent Tropical Storm Hanna while others were still missing and the number could rise.

The newly installed Prime Minister, Michele Pierre Louis, has launched a fresh appeal for international aid.

He called in particular for helicopters to bring those left stranded by the floods to safety. Many lived for days on their rooftops to escape the flood waters.

Florida threat

Ike has been moving westwards at 20km/h (13mph) and is expected to make a 30-hour track along the centre of Cuba, although weakening on the way, the US National Hurricane Center says.

It has been downgraded to a Category Two storm, but the NHC said it was still potentially very dangerous.

On its current track the storm could threaten the islands of the Florida Keys by Tuesday. Some residents have received evacuation orders.

Emergency management director Craig Fugate urged them to move soon, or they “may find the escape route blocked by a hurricane”.

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Are you in the Caribbean? Have you been affected by the storms? What preparations have you made to deal with the adverse weather? Send us your comments and experiences

Silent movie star Page dies at 98

Anita Page was a key figure as the silent movie era ended

Veteran actress Anita Page, whose career dated back to the silent movie era, has died aged 98 in Los Angeles.

Page counted Buster Keaton, Lon Chaney and Joan Crawford among her co-stars during an 84-year career which saw her start out as an extra in 1924.

Her big break came in 1928 when she starred alongside Crawford in Our Dancing Daughters.

More recently, she had completed a cameo role in forthcoming horror movie Frankenstein Rising.

Page died in her sleep at home on Saturday morning, friend Randal Malone told the Associated Press news agency.

Her daughter, Linda Sterne, said her mother had been good friends with Marion Davies and Jean Harlow, and for a period in the 1930s had lived as a guest in a California castle owned by newspaper magnate William Hearst.

“She was the best mother I could have,” Sterne said. “She was wonderful.”

Page starred alongside Chaney in 1928’s While The City Sleeps, while the following years she co-starred in musical The Broadway Melody, the first talkie to win a best picture Oscar.

Her other work included two of Keaton’s sound films: Free and Easy in 1930, and the following year’s Sidewalks of New York.

She also starred alongside Walter Huston in 1932’s Night Court, and The Easiest Way, in which Clark Gable had a small role.

But Page stopped acting when she fell in love with US Navy aviator Herschel House. The couple married in 1936, six weeks after they met, and she settled down to life as an officer’s wife, hosting many parties at their home in San Diego Bay.

After House died in 1991, Page returned to acting, starring in suspense thriller Sunset After Dark in 1994.

Canadian PM calls snap election

Mr Harper’s minority government has needed opposition support to pass bills

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called an early election for 14 October in a bid to strengthen his minority Conservative government.

He met Governor General Michaelle Jean – the representative of Canada’s head of state, Queen Elizabeth II – to request the dissolution of parliament.

The latest polls indicate the Conservatives are ahead of the opposition Liberals.

The PM, elected in 2006, has complained that parliament is deadlocked.

The vote will be Canada’s third national election in four years.

Economic issues

Mr Harper’s government has needed the support of the main opposition parties, the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois, to pass legislation and adopt budgets.

The election call had been widely expected, with Mr Harper complaining in recent weeks that parliament was “dysfunctional”.

Between now and October 14, Canadians will choose a government to look out for their interests at a time of global economic trouble Stephen Harper

Holding the election this year breaks Mr Harper’s own fixed-date election law, something he had said was necessary to prevent prime ministers calling elections when polls indicated they were in a favorable position.

Mr Harper has made it clear he is running on economic issues and criticized the Liberals’ plan to tax greenhouse gas polluters while cutting other taxes.

“Between now and October 14, Canadians will choose a government to look out for their interests at a time of global economic trouble,” Mr Harper said in a statement.

“They will choose between direction or uncertainty; between common sense or risky experiments; between steadiness or recklessness.”

The opposition leaders are expected to make their own addresses later on Sunday.

Favourable polls

Mr Harper led the Conservatives to victory in the 2006 election, ending 12 years of Liberal government.

The party heads into the election with 127 of parliament’s 308 seats. The Liberals have 95, the Bloc Quebecois has 48 and the New Democratic Party (NDP) 30.

There are three Independent MPs, the Green Party has one seat and four are vacant.

Opposition Liberal leader Stephane Dion proposes taxing polluters

An opinion poll held last week suggested support for the Conservatives had grown over the summer.

The Environics survey suggested that 38% of Canadians would vote for the Conservatives; 28% for the Liberals; 19% for the NDP, eight for the Bloc Quebecois and seven for the Greens.

The figures put the Conservatives within striking distance of a majority government, Donna Dasko, senior vice-president of Environics Research Group, told CBC News.

The leader of the separatist Bloc Quebecois, Gilles Duceppe, said his party was best positioned to stop the Conservatives gaining a majority.

The same Environics poll indicated increased support for the Conservatives in Quebec, where separatist ardour has faded in recent years.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion is staking his command of the party on his “Green Shift” plan, which would tax polluters but reduce other taxes.

If his party does not do well on 14 October, his leadership will likely come under scrutiny at a party convention in December.

Mr Dion has described Mr Harper as Canada’s most right-wing prime minister in history.

Mr Harper supported the Iraq war while in opposition and withdrew Canada from the Kyoto Protocol that aims to cut greenhouse gases. He has also increased Canada’s troop commitment to Afghanistan.