Obama visits storm victims with top critic

US President Barack Obama, locked in a tight re-election bid, will join one of his top Republican critics on a visit to victims of superstorm Sandy in New Jersey.

It will give Americans a high-profile display of presidential leadership while leaving rival Mitt Romney awkwardly on the sidelines less than a week before Election Day.

Obama will visit New Jersey, the state hardest hit by the storm which devastated much of the northeastern United States, accompanied by Governor Chris Christie.

The governor has been one of Romney's most prominent supporters, but has been effusive in his praise of Obama's response to the storm.

Though Obama has officially suspended campaigning for three days and New Jersey is safe Democratic territory, the tour with Christie offers him clear electoral advantages. Obama can appear to be in command, directing US aid and showing his concern about the storm's victims. Romney, meanwhile, must walk a careful line. Aggressive attacks on Obama could appear unseemly during a national crisis. Yet he is running out of time to make his case to voters ahead of Tuesday's vote.

Polls show the candidates virtually tied. But the winner will be determined in state-by-state votes and a handful of states that are not clearly Democratic or Republican will determine the outcome. For the moment, Obama appears to have a slight lead in the state tallies.

The Obama campaign dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to play defence in Florida on Wednesday, with stops in smaller more conservative markets of Sarasota and Ocala aimed at narrowing the margin where Republicans usually fare well.

For Obama, missing a few days of active campaigning for vital presidential duties may be a good trade, politically speaking.

To the independent and undecided voters sick of the mess in Washington, Obama appears bipartisan and positively unconcerned about his own political fate. His best friend is suddenly a prominent Romney supporter, Christie.

"The president has been all over this, and he deserves great credit," Christie, a Republican, gushed in a TV interview. By contrast, when Christie was asked whether Romney was coming to help, he said, "I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested."

Also haunting Romney are his past statements on the federal government's role in emergency management. He has said he believes state and local governments should have primary responsibility for emergency cleanup, and refused on Tuesday to answer repeated questions from reporters about what he would do with the Federal Emergency Management Agency if he wins the election.

Asked about federal aid to help recover and rebuild from Sandy, Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said: "A Romney-Ryan administration will always ensure that disaster funding is there for those in need. Period."

In a sign that Ohio looms large for the Romney campaign: a guest-filled rally in suburban Cincinnati is planned for Friday to kick off the campaign's final four days. Set to join the Romney and running mate Paul Ryan are golf legend Jack Nicklaus, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Texas Governor Rick Perry and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

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Yellow fever kills 32 in Sudan's Darfur

MOSQUITO-BORN yellow fever has killed 32 people in Sudan's conflict-plagued Darfur region this month, the health ministry said in a statement obtained by AFP on Wednesday.

"According to laboratory results, people are affected by yellow fever. The total number affected in the two states is 84, 32 of whom died," the statement said, referring to outbreaks in Central and South Darfur.

The October 30 statement said a vaccination campaign is being prepared.

In the meantime, the ministry has sent blood supplies and medicines to the area, and has a plan to fight mosquitoes, it said.

"Now we received some reports from the area saying the situation is stable," the ministry added.

The UN's World Health Organization said the ministry notified it of the outbreak in the districts of Azoom, Kass, Mershing, Nertiti, Nyala, Wadi Salih and Zalingei.

"The federal Ministry of Health, WHO and other health partners are working on the ground to ensure timely containment of the outbreak," a statement said.

There is no specific treatment for the viral illness found in tropical regions of Africa but it can be contained through the use of bed nets, insect repellents and long clothing.

"Vaccination is the single most important measure for preventing yellow fever," WHO said.

In January 2011, 35 people died from yellow fever in Ivory Coast.

Ethnic African Darfur rebels rose against the Arab-dominated Khartoum government in 2003. The United Nations estimates at least 300,000 people died, but the government puts the toll at 10,000.

An estimated 1.7 million Darfur people are still living in camps for the displaced, the UN says.

Violence has eased since the early days of the nine-year-old war but various conflicts persist: rebel-government clashes, inter-Arab and tribal fighting, as well as carjackings and other banditry.

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JFK, Newark airports reopen but limited

TWO of the biggest airports serving New York - John F Kennedy and Newark Liberty International - have reopened.

The first passenger flight to JFK arrived from Long Beach, California, at 7.04am local time on Wednesday. The JetBlue flight carried 150 passengers.

The first flight into Newark, New Jersey, was a FedEx plane that landed at 7.12am.

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman Ron Marsico says the two airports reopened "on a very limited operational schedule".

He urged passengers to call their carriers before heading to the airports.

Some terminals at Newark had lost power during the superstorm but electricity returned on Tuesday.

New York's LaGuardia Airport remains closed. Authorities are assessing the impact of the storm on the airport.

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Indonesia's Yudhoyono welcomed by British

INDONESIA'S President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been welcomed to London by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II at the start of a state visit aimed at impressing the emerging Asian power with pomp and pageantry.

The Queen received Yudhoyono and his wife Ani with a guard of honour on Horse Guards Parade, the large parade ground in central London, where the visiting leader inspected the troops in their scarlet uniforms and bearskin hats.

The 86-year-old British monarch and her husband Prince Philip then accompanied them in a horsedrawn state carriage procession along the Mall to Buckingham Palace, where the visiting couple are staying during their trip.

The Queen, who visited Indonesia 33 years ago with Philip, will host a lavish state banquet in Yudhoyono's honour on Wednesday evening.

Foreign Secretary William Hague and Home Secretary Theresa May also greeted Yudhoyono and his wife before the carriage procession.

"As well having one of the world's most thriving economies, Indonesia is in the vanguard of the political change shaping Asia," Hague told parliament on Tuesday.

"This visit will be an opportunity for us to build on the strong partnership established over the last decade."

The president will hold talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday and attend a meeting of the high-level United Nations panel that is drawing up a strategy on how to build on the Millennium Development Goals.

Yudhoyono, who is the world's only head of state to have served as a UN peacekeeper, will also give a speech at the Royal College of Defence Studies.

The 15th-century Guildhall, in London's financial district, will host a second banquet on Thursday night.

Several trade announcements are expected during the three-day trip, with Britain keen to gain access to Indonesia's fast-growing economy and 240 million consumers.

The state visit is part of Britain's drive to boost its diplomatic presence in Southeast Asia, with Indonesia regarded by British officials as the most influential player in the region.

As the world's largest Muslim-majority country, it is also seen as a strategic ally in the Islamic world.

"Indonesia is far and away the most important country in ASEAN," said a Foreign Office source.

Officials also see Indonesia as a potential future host for foreign campuses of its universities, similar to Malaysia where several British universities including Nottingham, Southampton and Newcastle have outposts.

Britain usually hosts two state visits each year, but Yudhoyono is the only foreign head of state to receive the formal hospitality in 2012 following months of diamond jubilee celebrations marking the Queen's 60th year on the throne.

The last state visit was by Turkish President Abdullah Gul in November last year.

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Airports and NYSE reopen post-Sandy

TWO major airports have reopened and the floor of the New York Stock Exchange has come back to life, while across the river in New Jersey, National Guardsmen rush to rescue flood victims and fires still rage two days after superstorm Sandy. ?

For the first time since the storm battered the Northeast, killing at least 57 people and doing billions of dollars in damage, brilliant sunshine washed over the nation's largest city - a striking sight after days of grey skies, rain and wind.

At the stock exchange, running on generator power, Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a thumbs-up and rang the opening bell to whoops from traders on the floor. Trading resumed after the first two-day weather shutdown since the blizzard of 1888.

Kennedy and Newark Liberty airports reopened with limited service just after 7.00am at New York's LaGuardia Airport, which suffered far worse damage and where water covered parts of runways, remained closed.

It was clear that restoring the region to its ordinarily frenetic pace could take days - and that rebuilding the hardest-hit communities and the transportation networks that link them together could take considerably longer.

About 6.5 million homes and businesses were still without power, including four million in New York and New Jersey. Electricity was out as far west as Wisconsin and as far south as the Carolinas.

The scale of the challenge could be seen across the Hudson River in New Jersey, where National Guard troops arrived in the heavily flooded city of Hoboken to help evacuate thousands still stuck in their homes.

Live wires dangled in floodwaters that Mayor Dawn Zimmer said were rapidly mixing with sewage.

And new problems arose when firefighters were unable to reach blazes rekindled by natural gas leaks in the heavily hit shore town of Mantoloking.

President Barack Obama planned to visit Atlantic City, NJ, which was directly in the storm's path on Monday night and where part of the historic boardwalk washed away.

Governor Chris Christie said he plans to ask the president to assign the Army Corps of Engineers to work on how to rebuild beaches and find "the best way to rebuild the beach to protect these towns."

Outages in the state's two largest cities, Newark and Jersey City, left traffic signals dark, resulting in fender-benders at intersections where police were not directing traffic. At one Jersey City supermarket, there were long lines to get bread and use an electrical outlet to charge mobilephones.

As New York began its second day after the megastorm, morning rush-hour traffic was heavy as people started returning to work. There was even a sign of normality: commuters waiting at bus stops. School was out for a third day.

The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan, and the Holland Tunnel, between New York and New Jersey, remained closed. But bridges into the city were open, and city buses were running, free of charge.

On the Brooklyn Bridge, closed earlier because of high winds, joggers and bikers made their way across before sunrise. One cyclist carried a flashlight. Car traffic on the bridge was busy.

Bloomberg said it could be the weekend before the subway, which suffered the worst damage in its 108-year history, is running again. High water prevented inspectors from immediately assessing damage to key equipment.

Amtrak laid out plans to resume runs in the Northeast on Wednesday, with modified service between Newark, NJ, and points south. But flooding continued to prevent service to and from New York's Penn Station. Amtrak said the water in train tunnels under the Hudson and East rivers was unprecedented.

"The uncertainty is the worst," said Jessica Levitt, who was told it could be a week before she can enter her house. "Even if we had damage, you just want to be able to do something. We can't even get started."

And in New York, residents of the flooded beachfront neighbourhood of Breezy Point in returned home to find fire had taken everything the water had not. A huge blaze destroyed perhaps 100 homes in the close-knit community where many had stayed behind despite being told to evacuate.

There were still only hints of the economic impact of the storm.

Forecasting firm IHS Global Insight predicted it would cause $US20 billion ($A19.38 billion) in damage and $10 billion to $30 billion in lost business. Another firm, AIR Worldwide, estimated losses up to $15 billion.

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Tens of thousands flee as storm hits India

MORE than 100,000 people were evacuated from their homes on Wednesday as a tropical storm slammed into southern India from the Bay of Bengal.

Rain lashed the region and strong winds uprooted trees in some places. Weather officials said the storm had maximum winds of 75 kilometres per hour after making landfall.

A storm surge of up to 1.5 metres was expected to flood low-lying areas of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh states, the India Meteorological Department said.

It said heavy to very heavy rain was expected over parts of the states during the next 24 hours. Fishermen were asked to stay at shore until Thursday.

An oil tanker with 37 crewmembers ran aground off Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Coast guard officers were evacuating the crew and searching for some whose lifeboat reportedly capsized in the choppy waters, it said. Officials were not immediately available for comment.

State authorities turned 282 schools into relief centres in Chennai. The city's port halted cargo operations, PTI said. Twenty-three ships were moved to safer areas.

About 150,000 people were moved to shelters in Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh state, district official B Sridhar said.

In Sri Lanka, authorities said two people were killed and thousands displaced due to heavy rain and strong winds from the storm.

Sri Lanka's Disaster Management Center said 4627 people across the island nation had been displaced by flooding, while 56 were evacuated in the central region because of threats of landslides. One woman died on Tuesday after a tree branch fell on her, while another person was killed in flooding, the agency said. Floods also damaged about 1000 houses, it said.

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Greece's tough steps spark strike call

GREECE has unveiled a tough new austerity budget, sparking a call for a 48-hour strike as the EU said there was more work to be done before the recession-hit country can access loan funds needed to stave off bankruptcy.

Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras unveiled the 2013 budget to politicians, which also predicts that the economy would shrink by a worse than previously expected 4.5 per cent next year and the country's debt mountain will swell to 346 billion euros ($A436.35 billion) or 189 per cent of economic output.

Adding to the government's woes, the main Greek union called for a 48-hour general strike starting on November 6 - just 10 days before the country risks sliding into bankruptcy if it fails to secure 31.2 billion euro lifeline from the "troika" of international creditors.

Conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had announced on Tuesday that his government had agreed with the mission of 'troika' auditors in Greece on the terms of a new 13.5 billion euro austerity package needed to unlock the next instalment of rescue loans.

Accordingly, the finance ministry on Wednesday introduced a budget and a three-year economic program pledging the required level of cuts in 2013-14.

But ahead of a conference call among eurozone finance ministers, who are due to make a final decision on the payout by November 12, the European Commission on Wednesday noted that a deal with Greece was technically still pending.

"We are continuously narrowing the number of open issues," Simon O'Connor, spokesman for the EU's euro commissioner Olli Rehn.

O'Connor said Brussels was "confident" of striking an accord "soon."

The Eurogroup of finance ministers also demanded on Wednesday that Greece "swiftly" solve outstanding issues to clear the way for the loan payment.

"We called on the Greek authorities to solve remaining issues so as to swiftly finalise the negotiations," said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker in a statement after a two-hour conference call.

Juncker did not elaborate on the issues that remain, but the Greek government plans to introduce further reform bills in parliament next week.

The German government had earlier noted that work remains to be done on a Greek deal but acknowledged that the government seemed serious on reform.

"We acknowledge that the Greek government of Mr (Antonis) Samaras is going about, has gone about, this very difficult task of advancing the reforms in the country in a serious way," Steffen Seibert told a regular government news conference.

Samaras's announcement on the bailout talks angered his socialist and moderate leftist allies in the coalition, who insist the deal on a new round of painful spending cuts and other reforms is not done until it is approved by parliament.

The 2013 budget gives a grim picture of the outlook for the country.

It predicted that gross domestic product in Greece - already in its fifth year of recession - would shrink by 4.5 per cent compared with a forecast of 3.8 per cent a month ago, although below the 6.6 per cent decline expected for this year.

The 2013 public deficit forecast was increased to 5.2 per cent the previous forecast of 4.2 per cent.

The government is planning 9.4 billion euros in cuts which will affect mainly stage wages, pensions and benefits that have already been drastically reduced over the past two years.

But it will still need to borrow over 68 billion euros next year, the draft budget said.

Greece desperately needs to reach a deal before November 16 as a three-month treasury bill worth five billion euros must be repaid that week.

The government hopes to secure the eurozone's approval of the cuts by November 12 to unlock a 31.2-billion-euro instalment of EU-IMF rescue loans.

"If the deal does not pass... the country will be led to chaos," Samaras warned on Tuesday.

But the unions threatened more social unrest, announcing a general strike for November 6 and 7 to coincide with debates next week on the budget and other reform measures.

"The central aim and demand of the unions is the rejection (by parliament) of unacceptable, destructive and coercive measures imposed by the troika," the GSEE union said in a statement.

The draft budget was submitted to parliament just before MPs passed a law that facilitates the sale of state companies, with the government planning to raise 2.5 billion euros in asset sales in 2013.

Under the law, the Greek state is no longer obliged to maintain a specific minimum stake in several public utilities that will be divested in coming months.

These include main electricity provider PPC, leading refiner HELPE, gaming monopoly OPAP, the water companies and port authorities of Athens and Thessaloniki, Hellenic Post and racetrack operator ODIE.

Greece was originally supposed to raise 50 billion euros from asset sales by 2015.

This was later scaled down to 19 billion, and on Wednesday the government said it planned to raise just 9.5 billion euros by 2016.

Wednesday's privatisation vote was seen as a curtain-raiser for a bigger showdown next week on the budget and remaining reforms.

Greek media meanwhile were on strike on Wednesday over social security measures affecting journalists.

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