Communities along the US east coast are engaged in massive cleanup after the devastation of hurricane Isabel. A Hurricane caused about 25 deaths and up to a billion dollars in damage as it slammed into North Carolina's B. islands and turned its way north to Virginia and Maryland. President Bush has declared those states and the Washington D.C. disaster area and enabling them to get federal assistants. The hurricane damaged or destroyed thousands homes and business, uprooted trees washed away roads and bridges and cut electricity to about six million people.
Attacks in Iraq killed 2 US soldiers and wounded at least 3 others Wednesday. 1 soldier was killed late Wednesday after coming under fire in Baghdad. Earlier a roadside bombing killed another US soldier in Tikrit. Elsewhere Iraqi police opened fire outside employment offices in central Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul to disperse groups of demonstrators demanding jobs. Meanwhile US officials say they are discussing with other United Nations Security Council members on newly revised draft resolution on Iraq.
At least one Saudi Arabian policemen and 3 militants were killed Tuesday in a shootout in J. province near the border with Yemen. An Interior Ministry statement says 5 militants were involved in the shootout and 4 other policemen were wounded. Saudi Security forces have had several clashes with suspected militants since launching a crackdown after the last May's suicide bombings that killed 35 people in the Capital Riyadh.
OPEC has officially announced that 3.5% cut in output, that's sent oil prices soaring. US stock markets fell sharply on Wednesday after the announcement and the reduction in its production quotas. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 150 points at 9426.
On Wall Street today the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 19 points. The S&P 500 which is a measure of the activities of a broad segment of the market rose 2 points. And the NASDAQ, which includes many technology stocks, finished 4 points higher.
Europe has launched its first mission to the moon. An A-5 rocket carrying a Smart-I moon exploration probe and 2 commercial satellites blasted off from French Diana Saturday night. The European space agency's moon probe is scheduled to reach a lunar orbit in 15 months to begin carrying out scientific experiments.
Electric Power has not been restored across Italy following a country-wide outage left 57-million people in the dark.Planes and trains were left strained, traffic accidents occured darken in the sections. authorities blame three death on the outage.whose origin is still being investigated.
President George W. Bush has signed a law allowing people to tell telephone sales people not to call them any more.Americans prefer not to receive random sales pictures at all hours of the day, and the Americans people should be free to restrict these calls.Federal communication's commission chairman Michael Paul says his agency will enforce the law vigorously.The minute that we believe that a tele-marketer has been given the notice required that they can not call somebody or they are going to trigger our rules, and we will forcefully enforce them.
US first lady Laura Bush meanwhile was in Palace to mark the US return to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Culture Organization after a 20-year boycott.As of 8.1 the United States government will once again be a full active and enthusiastic participant in UNESCO's important mission to promote peace and freedom. Laura Bush.The United State quit the UNESCO in 1984 accusing it of mismanagement and anti-western bias.
Burundi's government and the main rebel group there have reached a deal on key security and political issues aimed at ending twenty year's of civil war. Reports say the two sides have worked out a sharing leadership of the military and police and on the transformation of the force, the Defense and Democracy rebel group into a political party. However, issues of immunity for the rebels and bringing them into senate have yet to be resolved. The two sides signed a peace agreement last month.
Researchers in Taiwan say genetics may explain why Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome affected mostly Asians. A team from Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei says patients found to have a variant of an immune system gene called HLA were more likely to develop SARS. The team says the gene is common in people in southern Chinese descent and is rarely found in European populations. SARS first arose in China's southern Guangdong province.
And scientists in South Africa say they will begin the nation's first clinical trial of a potential vaccine for the AIDS virus that with 48 volunteers. Half of those volunteers come to the United States. The other half are in South Africa. Testing of two other potential vaccines is to begin soon. |