WELLINGTON (AFP) –
Villages were "wiped out" by a tsunami that hit the South Pacific after a huge quake off the coast of Samoa, and people had been reported missing, a reporter for Radio Polynesia told Radio New Zealand.

He said they were receiving information of widespread destruction.

"Damaged houses, villages being wiped out, there are speculations there are some missing people out there but no confirmation of that yet," he said.

In Manila, millions of residents now live in a world of mud. Torrential rains over the weekend triggered the worst flooding the Philippines' capital has seen in over four decades, submerging more than 80% of the city, killing at least 246 people and displacing hundreds of thousands more. By Tuesday, the waters had receded in many places, but they have left behind ruined homes, swept away neighborhoods and, according to health officials, disabled the majority of Manila's medical facilities. Debris, sewage and abandoned vehicles tossed around by gushing currents now litter the notoriously polluted capital; aid workers warn of water-borne diseases. The government has placed the area around Manila under a "state of public calamity."
In an appeal for assistance, Philippine president Gloria Arroyo described Tropical Storm Ketsana, which hit Manila on Sept. 26, as a "once-in-a-lifetime typhoon." A month's worth of rain deluged the city in the space of 12 hours. "The system is overwhelmed, local government units are overwhelmed," said Anthony Golez of the state's National Disaster Coordinating Council at a press conference on Sept. 28. (See pictures of the storm.)
Yet many in the country are pointing fingers at its politicians for failing to predict the scale of the disaster or lessen the damage it wreaked. Manila, they say, was always bound to face such catastrophe, and more should have been done to help its millions of residents prepare. A recently published study by the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSA), a research group based in Singapore, ranked metropolitan Manila as one of the provinces in Southeast Asia most vulnerable to flooding. The capital region is perched on a marshy isthmus crisscrossed with streams and rivers. An ever-growing population - Manila is now a sprawling mega-city of some 12 million people, larger still when factoring in the day-worker population - and the lack of infrastructure to accommodate it left swathes of the city exposed. "What we are seeing is a phenomenon that will affect many major cities in Asia," says Neeraj Jain, country specialist for the Philippines at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which is headquartered in Manila. "Urbanization has been so rapid, yet the planning processes have lagged." (Read: "Manila Through the Eyes of F. Sionil Jos[a {e}].")
Last weekend's flood was in large part the result of the capital's poor drainage and sanitation systems, neglected by several successive administrations in power. As Ketsana rained down upon Manila, sewers clogged up by plastic bags and other refuse led to roads becoming rivers, gardens lagoons. Video images of desperate people riding floating pontoons of garbage down inundated streets were a sign not just of the consequences of the flood, but its causes. Many impoverished Manila residents also live in makeshift settlements by rivers and creeks - the source of their drinking water - that overflowed and carried off their homes. "People have always been living on the edge," says Carlos Celdran, a popular Manila historian and performing artist. "It's amazing the city has actually managed to make it this far."
The Spanish seized Manila from its Muslim rulers in the 16th century and set it up as their colonial seat in Asia. The city was a flourishing, elegant entrepot for centuries, but in recent times civic planning has been more haphazard as its population boomed. Lambert Ramirez, executive director of the National Institute for Policy Studies, a Manila-based think tank, says much of the blame for poor urban management ought to be leveled at the government. "There's no coordinated policy for cleaning up garbage. There's no political will to get even simple things done," he says. Ramirez spoke to TIME while salvaging appliances and valuables from his own flooded home. (See pictures of the recent floods in Georgia.)
Jain of the ADB says the leadership in Manila, faced with elections in the coming months, is indeed thinking of long-term solutions to its infrastructure woes. Plans have been afoot to improve sanitation and also relieve the population burden in metro Manila by shifting certain businesses and government offices to areas outside the dense capital region. But the challenge facing the Philippines and other poor Asian countries is one of resources. Most Southeast Asia nations budget around two or three percent of their GDP for infrastructure development. To fend off such disasters in the future, Jain says that figure ought to be closer to five or six percent. It's a deficit few governments can afford to make up overnight.
But given the looming specter of climate change, they may have to find a way sooner rather than later. The prospect of another typhoon this week underscores environmentalists' concern that shifts in global temperatures may mean increasingly extreme weather patterns for coastal cities like Manila. "[Ketsana] was a startling, unique event," says Herminia Francisco of the EEPSA in Singapore. "But then I think this is going to happen more and more frequently in the future." (See a TIME graphic on destructive weather.)
For today, as international aid pours in from organizations like the Red Cross and the World Food Program, Manila residents are slowly retrieving their homes and livelihoods from the mud. Thousands of volunteers have donated food and rushed to help others worse affected. "Filipinos are used to crisis," says Celdran. "We've gone through a lot over the years, but we've managed. We're a resilient people."
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GENEVA (AFP) –
Detained filmmaker Roman Polanski on Tuesday lodged a complaint challenging his arrest in Switzerland pending a US extradition request on child sex charges, the top Swiss criminal court said.

"The second court of complaints of the Federal Criminal Tribunal confirms that it has received today a complaint by Roman Polanski against the arrest warrant for extradition," the Swiss tribunal said in a statement.

His French lawyer in Paris also said he would seek bail. "We are asking that he be released, if necessary with conditions attached," Herve Temime told AFP.

The Federal Criminal Tribunal said a decision on the complaint would be delivered in the coming weeks.

The 76-year-old French-Polish filmmaker, who is regarded as a fugitive in the United States, was arrested on Saturday as he arrived in the Swiss city of Zurich to attend a film festival.

Polanski pleaded guilty before a US court in 1978 of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor as part of a plea bargain.

But he fled before sentencing and US authorities have been seeking his arrest and extradition to the United States.

Polanski's arrest on the three decade-old affair has triggered an uproar in the film world.

Top film directors including Woody Allen, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese and Pedro Almodovar signed a petition protesting against Polanski's detention, a French film industry association, SACD, said on Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) –
China and the United States, the world's top greenhouse gas emitters, will try to ignite efforts on Tuesday to secure a U.N. global warming pact as worries grow of a "dangerously close" deadlock in talks.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao address a special U.N. summit just 2-1/2 months before representatives from 190 nations gather in Copenhagen to negotiate a deal to combat climate change.

Talks leading to the December meeting have not gone well.

Developed and developing countries are at odds over how to distribute emissions curbs while poorer nations press richer ones to contribute huge sums of money to help them cope with rising temperatures.

Obama and Hu, who are scheduled to meet one-on-one after the summit, could help break the climate impasse.

The Chinese leader, whose country is the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and other climate-warming gases, is expected to lay out new proposals that may include a "carbon intensity" target -- a pledge to cut the amount of greenhouse gasses produced for each dollar of national income.

"This suite of policies will take China to be the world leader on addressing climate change," said Yvo de Boer, the U.N. climate chief, on Monday, anticipating the announcement.

An aggressive move by China to tackle its emissions -- even if short of an absolute cap -- could blunt criticism by leaders in Washington, many of whom are reluctant to commit to U.S. emission cuts without evidence that Beijing is doing the same.

Obama, whose legislative initiatives to reduce U.S. emissions have been overshadowed by his push for healthcare reform, will try to fulfill his promise of showing leadership toward getting a global deal, even as chances that the U.S. Senate will pass a climate bill by December dim.

Martin Kaiser, climate policy director for environmental group Greenpeace International, said the president had allowed "vested interests" to undermine his promises so far.

"This is Obama's opportunity to be a global leader and signal to the rest of the world that the US will take on its fair share of the effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions over the next 10 years," Kaiser said in a statement.

IN NEED OF MOMENTUM

Tuesday's meeting, called by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, will gather nearly 100 heads of state and government to focus on climate. Though it is not a negotiating session, activists hope momentum from the meeting will trickle down to the actual talks.

"I hope world leaders will leave the Summit ready to give their negotiating teams the green light and specific guidance needed to accelerate progress on the road to Copenhagen," Ban said in a statement.

"The clock is ticking. I hope they will publicly commit to sealing a deal in Copenhagen," he said.

The European Union, which welcomed Obama's more aggressive stance on climate policy compared to his predecessor George W. Bush, has become increasingly frustrated with the U.S. administration's lack of progress.

"If we don't move this week, there is a real risk that we will miss the opportunity in Copenhagen," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters after a speech in which he described U.N. talks as being "dangerously close to deadlock."

Europe wants rich countries among the Group of 20 to find some $10 billion annually for the developing world as an advance payment toward reaching a climate deal this year.

G20 leaders are expected to discuss the issue in Pittsburgh later this week, but, barring a breakthrough in the U.N. summit, little progress is expected.

(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner and Walter Brandimarte; Editing by Eric Beech)