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Massive Earthquake Kills Over 23,000 Across Indian Ocean Region

Ukraine Opposition Leader Claims Victory in Election Rerun

Invisible Soldiers: Iraq War Veterans Go Homeless Months After Returning From War

Massive Earthquake Kills Over 23,000 Across Indian Ocean Region

We go to Sri Lanka and Thailand for on-the-ground reports from nations devastated by massive tsunamis caused by the world's largest earthquake in 40 years.

More than 20,000 people have died across southern Asia after a massive earthquake in the ocean set off a series of tsunamis. More than one million people have been left homeless. Scientists said the earthquake registered at a magnitude of 9.0 making it the world's largest earthquake in four decades.

Hardest hit were Sri Lanka, Indonesia and India. More than a thousand died in Malaysia, Maldives, Bangladesh. At least nine people even died in the eastern coast of Somalia some 3,000 miles from the earthquakes epicenter.

The earthquake generated waves as high as 40 feet that swept across the Indian Ocean.

The head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute said the earthquake was large enough to disturb the Earth's rotation. He said "All the planet is vibrating" from the quake.

Some scientists say the catastrophic death toll might have been reduced had India and Sri Lanka been part of an international warning system designed to warn coastal communities about potentially deadly tsunamis. The Wall Street Journal reports a tsunami of this size is unprecedented in the Indian Ocean.

The U.N.'s Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland told CNN that the worse may still to come from disease and epidemics. He said, "The longer term effects may be as devastating as the tidal wave or the tsunami itself."

John Aglionby, reporter for the Guardian of London. He has been reporting on the earthquake from Indonesia and Thailand. He is speaking to us from the Thai city of Phuket.

Emile Okal, professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at Northwestern University.

Mervyn Perera, member of disaster unit of the Red Cross in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Ukraine Opposition Leader Claims Victory in Election Rerun

Christian Science Monitor reporter Fred Weir reports from Kiev on the rerun election that pitted the pro-Kremlin Viktor Yanukovych against pro-western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko.

In Ukraine, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has claimed victory in the rerun of the country's presidential election. Exit polls showed Yushchenko winning by between 15 and 20 percentage points.

Speaking in Kiev's Independence Square, Yushchenko told supporters, "We have been independent for 14 years but we were not free. Now we can say this is a thing of the past. Now we are facing an independent and free Ukraine."

The election marks a major defeat for the pro-Kremlin Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych who appeared set to become president a month ago following the first presidential vote. But international monitors and Yushchenko supporters claimed the vote was rigged and forced a revote.

While the losing candidate Yankukovych was strongly backed by Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Kremlim, Yushchenko had major support from the west. The U.S. government alone pumped $65 million into the elections over the past year. While the money was officially designed for non-partisan purposes, it went to aid the opposition movement.

Putin accused Washington of fomenting "permanent revolutions" in Moscow's backyard. He accused the US of creating the so-called orange revolution that swept Yushchenko into office as well as the so-called "rose revolution" in neighboring Georgia which led to the presidency of US-educated President Mikhail Saakashvili.

Fred Weir, reporter for the Christian Science Monitor in Kiev.

Invisible Soldiers: Iraq War Veterans Go Homeless Months After Returning From War

Democracy Now! continues its discussion with Iraq war veterans Herold Noel and Nicole Goodwin who faced an unexpected battle when they returned from Iraq - finding a place to live. [includes rush transcript]

An article written by John Tarleton in the new issue of The Indypendent, the newspaper of the NYC Indymedia Center, begins:

Four nights before Christmas, former Army specialist Herold Noel huddled for warmth in front of a fire he built for himself in Brooklyn's Prospect Park as temperatures slid toward the single digits. Plagued by nightmares and unable to hold a steady job or get the assistance he needed, he was on the verge of losing his wife and three young children. It wasn't the homecoming he'd expected after serving in Iraq last year.

According to the Pentagon, 955,000 U.S. troops have already served in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The experiences of Noel and others like him have many observers worried that the country will be inundated by a wave of returning veterans with no place to go and reeling from psychological trauma, as happened toward the end of the Vietnam War. According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, up to 17 percent of troops returning from Iraq "met the screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety, or PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder].

Herold Noel, who is still looking for a place to live, joins us today along with another former homeless veteran, Nicole Goodwin for the second part of a discussion on homelessness and Iraq war veterans.

Herold Noel, former Army specialist who recently returned from Iraq. He is now without a home.

Nicole Goodwin, former homeless veteran who returned from Iraq earlier this year. She now works with Operation Truth and lobbies on behalf of other Iraq war veterans.