generalspeaking

The State of Our World - 5 September 2006

• An out-of-control wildfire was burning within two kilometres of Manning Park on the British Columbia-Washington border about 190 kilometres east of Vancouver. Any amount of wind from the south would drive the Tatoosh Complex fire toward the park, said B.C. Forest Service incident commander Jeff Moore. The fire is considered "zero-percent contained". B.C. Forest Service spokeswoman Jeanne Rucker said U.S. officials kept Canadians away from the Tatoosh fire. "We do have an agreement with them now that says we can go across the border, but we were hoping for that a little bit earlier so we could have gone across and stopped it down there," said Ms. Rucker. "Unfortunately, bureaucracy takes time and we didn't get permission to get a good burn-off before it crossed the border.
• Anti-Terrorist Branch police from London, England raided the private Jameah Islameah school in East Sussex and in the same enquiry arrested 14 people in London over the week-end. The country's police force said its own officers visited the school as many as 15 times for training to improve their awareness of Muslim culture. The campus was brought to the attention of British authorities in 1999, when Yemen's ambassador to Britain alleged it was used to train young Islamic extremists, the Daily Telegraph reported, but police concluded at the time that the allegation was "totally unsubstantiated", and then-foreign secretary Robin Cook said there had been no breach of British law, the newspaper reported.
• A day after the Iraqi government hailed the arrest of al-Qaeda in Iraq's purported deputy head as a coup against insurgents, the bodies of 33 men, some with their hands bound and bearing signs of torture, were found in Baghdad, and foreign forces announced the death of four Americans and two British soldiers.
• Massive mudslides cascaded into apartment buildings, rising to the third floor and entombing occupants before they could flee. Torrential rains elsewhere in North Korea were said to have swept away cottages without a trace, and large buildings were left with only their supporting pillars still standing. The Seoul-based Buddhist charity "Good Friends", has put the death toll at over 50,000, which would make it the largest natural disaster in North Korea's history. Buddhist aid officials were credited with providing some of the earliest warnings in the mid-1990s about an unreported famine in North Korea that is believed to have killed two million people.
• One tourist was shot dead and five other westerners injured when a lone gunman opened fire on a tour party visiting a Roman amphitheatre in the Jordanian capital of Amman yesterday. Survivors described how the gunman shot his victims in the back at close range as they climbed the steep steps of the Roman amphitheatre, one of the most popular tourist sites in Amman.
• The Sudanese government, in response to a UN Security Council resolution passed last week calling for a UN peackeeping force of more than 20,000 to take over from the beleaguered and ineffective African Union force in Darfur, has delivered an ultimatum to the African Union peacekeeping force, telling it to extend its mandate or pack up and leave by the end of the month. Sudan is proposing to use more than 10,000 of its own troops to pacify Darfur. Diplomats and human rights workers say this could lead to vast numbers of new killings and refugee displacements.
• Another friendly fire incident in Afghanistan has killed four one Canadian soldier and wounded many others. "We have so much equipment to prevent this sort of thing, all kinds of protective measures," said Cpl. Pablo Mckelvey of Montreal. "I can't understand why an incident like that can still happen."
  An American pilot flying a Warthog in support of combat troops strafed an area too close to friendlies, unloading a burst of high explosive rounds, and the fragments went into the Canadian platoon's position.
  
• In a case of corruption Nigeria's president calls a "national embarrassment," most of the $25-million in vitamin A pills Canada donates annually to treat Nigerian mothers and children have ended up for sale in pharmacies, clinics and even hair salons. A Nigerian newspaper says the case underlines that "corruption and mismanagement are largely responsible" for the Nigerian people's woes.
  

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, September 05, 2006