Evening Edition is an Open Thread
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1 BP oil spill lawsuits sent to Louisiana, storm delays final well kill
by Matt Davis, AFP
Tue Aug 10, 6:39 pm ET
| NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – Civil lawsuits related to the BP oil spill were sent to a Louisiana judge Tuesday as an impending storm delayed efforts to finally kill the runaway well deep in the Gulf of Mexico.
The British energy giant is expected to get a far cooler reception in New Orleans than it would have received if the cases had been assigned to a judge in Big Oil’s headquarters of Houston, Texas, as BP had sought.
A judicial panel said New Orleans was the most appropriate place because Louisiana is the “geographic and psychological center of gravity” for the litigation. |
2 Top Iraqi officer warns US must stay past 2011
by Salam Faraj, AFP
18 mins ago
| BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraq’s top army officer warned on Wednesday that a pullout of all US troops by the end of 2011 was premature as the White House insisted it was on track to end combat operations this month as planned.
Lieutenant General Babaker Zerbari said American forces may be needed in the conflict-wracked nation for a further decade, in comments that called into question Washington’s policy of a phased and “responsible drawdown.”
The general’s remarks, which could irk political leaders in Baghdad, came after eight of his soldiers were killed in a brazen attack that exposed shaky security here less than three weeks before US troop numbers fall to 50,000. |
3 Rwanda grenade attack marks Kagame’s presidential win
by Helen Vesperini, AFP
12 mins ago
| KIGALI (AFP) – A grenade attack shook the Rwandan capital on Wednesday, wounding at least seven people, as President Paul Kagame was declared winner of a much-criticised election devoid of real opposition.
A grenade was thrown near Kigali’s main bus station, police spokesman Captain Eric Kayiranga told AFP, hours after Kagame was declared to have won Monday’s vote by landslide following a campaign marked by arrests and killings.
“There are at least seven wounded, including two children,” he said. |
4 Russia deploys air defence missiles in Abkhazia: general
by Stuart Williams, AFP
37 mins ago
| MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia announced Wednesday it had deployed a missile battery in Georgia’s pro-Moscow rebel region of Abkhazia, infuriating its arch foes in Tbilisi some two years after they fought a brief war.
“We have deployed the S-300 system on the territory of Abkhazia,” air force commander-in-chief General Alexander Zelin said in a statement.
“Its role will be anti-aircraft defence of the territory of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in cooperation with the air defence systems of the army.” |
5 US suffers widest trade gap in 20 months
by P. Parameswaran, AFP
Wed Aug 11, 12:28 pm ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US trade deficit widened sharply in June to the highest level in 20 months on waning exports and rising imports from China, triggering fresh growth fears in the world’s largest economy.
The trade gap grew at the fastest monthly pace on record to reach 49.9 billion dollars, threatening to erode already slow US economic growth.
“This is spectacularly terrible,” said Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics, explaining that rising imports will eat into already anemic growth figures. |
6 Macau casino makes a showy splash, but will punters come?
by Peter Brieger, AFP
2 hrs 38 mins ago
| MACAU (AFP) – A Macau casino is making a splash with a watery new entertainment spectacle — but the jury is still out on whether punters come to the betting-mad Chinese territory for anything other than gambling.
A media preview Wednesday of a new aquatic acrobatics show at the City of Dreams casino featured a dizzying mix of gymnastics, martial arts, dance, swordplay and stunts.
With gambling all but banned in China, visitors from the mainland and Hong Kong spend most of their time in Macau at its myriad casinos, enabling the former Portuguese colony to outpace Las Vegas in gambling revenues. |
7 Burning Russia battles to defend nuclear sites
by Stuart Williams, AFP
Tue Aug 10, 3:31 pm ET
| MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia fought a deadly battle Tuesday to prevent wildfires from engulfing key nuclear sites as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took to the air in a water-bombing plane to join the firefighting effort.
Two soldiers were killed by blazing trees as they strove to put out a fire dangerously close to Russia’s main nuclear research centre, while workers were also mobilised to fight blazes near a nuclear reprocessing plant.
After almost two weeks of fires that have claimed over 50 lives and part destroyed a military storage site, the authorities said they were making progress in fighting fires that still covered 174,035 hectares of land. |
8 Campbell says ‘nothing to gain’ from false trial testimony
by Sam Reeves, AFP
Tue Aug 10, 6:54 pm ET
| LONDON (AFP) – Supermodel Naomi Campbell insisted Tuesday she had “nothing to gain” from providing false testimony at the war crimes trial of Liberian ex-president Charles Taylor about suspected blood diamonds.
“I’ve no motive here. Nothing to gain,” she said in a statement released in London.
Her comments came after her former agent, Carole White, and US actress Mia Farrow both told judges this week that the model had accepted a gift of diamonds from Taylor and boasted about it the next day. |
9 Saudi watchdog backtracks on BlackBerry ban
AFP
Tue Aug 10, 3:28 pm ET
| RIYADH (AFP) – Saudi Arabia on Tuesday postponed indefinitely a BlackBerry ban after a deadline passed for finding a solution allowing authorities to monitor encrypted messages on the popular smartphone.
The telecoms watchdog in the ultra-conservative Muslim country announced BlackBerry messenger services would remain online, as it reported progress in efforts to find a solution, in a statement on state news agency SPA.
The Communications and Information Technology Commission had ordered mobile operators to block the BlackBerry feature from last Friday or face a 1.3-million-dollar (985,000 euro) fine, after similar moves by other Arab states. |
10 Poverty robs Yemeni children of their young years
by Jamal al-Jaberi, AFP
Wed Aug 11, 12:08 pm ET
| SANAA (AFP) – After their father died two years ago, Raseel and Anwar left their family to work in a car garage, joining the millions of Yemeni children forced into the impoverished country’s labour market.
Eleven-year-old Raseel al-Khameri and his eight-year-old mute brother Anwar spend their days working in the garage in Sanaa in an attempt to sustain a needy family in the village of Al-Akhmoor, 300 kilometres (186 miles) south of the capital.
“I work day and night. You’ll find me here (in the workshop) anytime from 9:00 am until 4:00 am,” Raseel says shyly, as his small hands skillfully work with various car parts. |
11 WHO list reveals flu advisors with industry ties
AFP
Wed Aug 11, 11:21 am ET
| GENEVA (AFP) – Five of the 15 experts that advised the World Health Organisation about swine flu pandemic alerts had received support from the drugs industry, including for flu vaccine research, the WHO revealed on Wednesday.
The agency released for the first time a list of the 15 members of the Emergency Committee headed by Australian tropical diseases professor John Mackenzie, who was the only member publicly named during the outbreak.
They came from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin and North America, the list posted on the WHO’s website showed. |
12 Russia admits fires burned on Chernobyl-hit land
by Anna Smolchenko, AFP
Wed Aug 11, 10:53 am ET
| MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia on Wednesday admitted wildfires hit hundreds of hectares of land contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, raising fears that buried radioactive particles could be released into the air.
Smog from the wildfires that shrouded Moscow for days triggering a public health crisis finally dissipated as the authorities claimed the total area on fire in Russia had halved over the last 24 hours.
But concerns mounted over the environment in the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine and Belarus, whose soil is still contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, as the authorities acknowledged the area had been hit by the fires. |
13 Russia urges no panic over Chernobyl-hit regions
by Anna Smolchenko, AFP
Wed Aug 11, 9:06 am ET
| MOSCOW (AFP) – Fires in Russia have hit areas contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster but much of the pollution remains deep in the soil and there is no reason for panic, officials and experts said Wednesday.
“This phenomenon exists,” said deputy director Alexei Bobrinsky for the state-run Russian Centre for the Protection of Forests, also known as Roslesozashchita. “But there is no reason for panic,” he told AFP.
The state-run Forestry Management Office for the Bryansk region — the area bordering Ukraine and Belarus whose soils were heavily contaminated by the 1986 disaster — said “the situation is complicated but stable and under control.” |
14 UN warns of militant threat in Pakistan floods
by Hasan Mansoor, AFP
Wed Aug 11, 9:10 am ET
| SUKKUR, Pakistan (AFP) – A senior UN envoy warned Wednesday that militants could exploit Pakistan’s worst humanitarian disaster as the government called on foreign donors to step up efforts to contain the crisis.
The United Nations is to launch an international appeal in New York, calling for hundreds of millions of dollars to provide urgent assistance to six million people it says now depend on aid for survival.
Pakistan’s government has admitted being unable to cope with the scale of the crisis and an outpouring of rage from survivors and the political opposition is compounding pressure on President Asif Ali Zardari. |
15 Devout Muslims renew faith with Ramadan fast
by Ines Bel Aiba, AFP
Wed Aug 11, 5:38 am ET
| CAIRO (AFP) – Sunni Muslims across much of the world on Wednesday began the fasting month of Ramadan during an especially gruelling time of the year for many, with the Shiite community expected to follow suit on Thursday.
Authorities urged Muslims to be merciful during Ramadan, while non-Muslims in Muslim-majority countries were asked to observe the rules and refrain from drinking or eating in public or face fines and imprisonment.
The first day of Ramadan was observed Wednesday in Egypt, the most populous Arab nation, in Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam, and Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation. |
16 China’s inflation up after devastating floods
by Fran Wang, AFP
Wed Aug 11, 5:13 am ET
| BEIJING (AFP) – China’s consumer inflation accelerated in July, the government said Wednesday, as the nation’s worst floods in a decade wiped out crops and disrupted transport links, driving up food prices.
Other key indicators showed the world’s third-largest economy was slowing after Beijing moved to wind back massive stimulus spending, close inefficient factories, and curb soaring property prices and bank lending.
The closely watched consumer price index, a key measure of inflation, rose 3.3 percent in July, compared with 2.9 percent in June, due in large part to “dramatic weather and serious floods”, the National Bureau of Statistics said. |
17 Storm delays BP relief well by 2-3 days
By Kristen Hays, Reuters
Wed Aug 11, 10:55 am ET
| HOUSTON (Reuters) – An approaching storm in the Gulf of Mexico will delay by two to three days BP Plc’s work on a relief well, the final step in permanently killing the source of the world’s worst offshore oil spill, the top U.S. spill official said on Tuesday.
BP suspended work on the relief well aiming to bore into its blown-out Macondo well hours before the National Hurricane Center said a tropical depression formed over the Gulf of Mexico.
Computer models forecast the depression would move northwest, crossing the spill site before making landfall in Louisiana or elsewhere along the north-central Gulf coast by Wednesday night or early Thursday. |
18 Florida AG proposes tougher illegal immigrant curbs
By Barbara Liston, Reuters
1 hr 44 mins ago
| ORLANDO (Reuters) – Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum on Wednesday proposed tougher curbs against illegal migrants in his melting-pot state which he said would go “one step further” than a similar contested Arizona law.
The proposal by McCollum, who is lagging in a race to become the Republican candidate for governor, was certain to thrust Florida into the heated immigration debate that is a major issue ahead of November 2 midterm Congressional elections.
“This legislation will provide new enforcement tools for protecting our citizens and will help our state fight the ongoing problem created by illegal immigration,” McCollum said, presenting the proposed measures at an event in Orlando. |
19 India steps up demands for BlackBerry access
By Bappa Majumdar and Devidutta Tripathy, Reuters
31 mins ago
| NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian demands are giving a new headache to BlackBerry maker Research in Motion after New Delhi threatened a shutdown that could affect one million of the smartphone’s 41 million users.
India, worried about national security, could ask mobile phone operators to block BlackBerry messaging and email until RIM provides them with access to data transmitted over the handset, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
If a shutdown takes effect, BlackBerry users in India would only be able to use the devices for phone calls and Internet browsing. |
20 GM results to show gain over first quarter
By Soyoung Kim and Kevin Krolicki, Reuters
Wed Aug 11, 8:24 am ET
| NEW YORK/DETROIT (Reuters) – General Motors Co is preparing to report second-quarter results that will show a substantial gain over the first quarter in a report it will use to bolster its bid to return to capital markets and pay back taxpayers, two people familiar with the matter said.
GM, now 61 percent-owned by the U.S. government, is counting on the momentum from its quarterly results to help it clinch a $5 billion bank credit facility as it prepares a stock offering expected to be the largest ever for the U.S. market.
GM has substantially completed work needed to register the IPO with the SEC but needs to complete negotiations with banks for its credit facility before that filing, the sources said. |
21 Scientists find new superbug spreading from India
By Kate Kelland and Ben Hirschler, Reuters
Wed Aug 11, 7:54 am ET
| LONDON (Reuters) – A new superbug could spread around the world after reaching Britain from India — in part because of medical tourism — and scientists say there are almost no drugs to treat it.
Researchers said on Wednesday they had found a new gene called New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase, or NDM-1, in patients in South Asia and in Britain.
NDM-1 makes bacteria highly resistant to almost all antibiotics, including the most powerful class called carbapenems, and experts say there are no new drugs on the horizon to tackle it. |
22 Tropical depression halts drilling at Gulf well
By JEFFREY COLLINS and HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 27 mins ago
| NEW ORLEANS – Drilling the final feet of a relief well intended to permanently plug the busted BP oil well deep below the Gulf of Mexico will have to wait two to three days as a tropical depression bears down on the site.
BP and Coast Guard officials had already decided to stop drilling earlier Tuesday, before forecasters at the National Hurricane Center named the storm a depression. A tropical storm warning was issued for much of the Gulf Coast affected by the oil spill, from Destin, Fla., to Intracoastal City, La., and included New Orleans.
The center of the storm was located off Florida, about 150 miles east-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, on Wednesday and was weakening. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the depression could dissipate instead of becoming Tropical Storm Danielle. |
23 In La., signs of regrowth seen in oiled marshes
By CAIN BURDEAU and JEFFREY COLLINS, Associated Press Writers
7 mins ago
| BARATARIA BAY, La. – Shoots of marsh grass and bushes of mangrove trees already are starting to grow back in the bay where just months ago photographers shot startling images of dying pelicans coated in oil from the massive Gulf oil spill.
More than a dozen scientists interviewed by The Associated Press say the marsh here and across the Louisiana coast is healing itself, giving them hope delicate wetlands might weather the worst offshore spill in U.S. history better than they had feared. Some marshland could be lost, but the amount appears to be small compared with what the coast loses every year through human development.
On Tuesday, a cruise through the Barataria Bay marsh with scientists revealed thin shoots growing up out of the oiled mass of grass. Elsewhere, there were still gray, dead mangrove shrubs, likely killed by the oil, but even there new green growth was coming up. |
24 Rhetoric dims hope for Social Security compromise
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer
31 mins ago
| WASHINGTON – Prospects are bleak for fixing Social Security’s financial problems as the government retirement insurance program celebrates its 75th anniversary this week.
Many Democrats adamantly oppose any cut in benefits to reduce cost and some won’t accept a gradual increase in the retirement age, something that was done in the last overhaul in 1983. Republicans say an increase in Social Security taxes is out of the question, even for the wealthy.
Unless Congress acts, Social Security’s combined retirement and disability trust funds are expected to run out of money in 2037. At that point, Social Security will collect enough in payroll taxes to cover about three-fourths of the benefits. |
25 ‘Lucy’ species used stone tools, fossil study says
By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer
1 min ago
| NEW YORK – Two ancient animal bones from Ethiopia show signs of butchering by human ancestors, moving back the earliest evidence for the use of stone tools by about 800,000 years, researchers say.
The bones appear to have been cut and smashed some 3.4 milion years ago, the first evidence of stone tool use by Australopithecus afarensis, the species best known for the fossil dubbed “Lucy,” says researcher Zeresenay Alemseged.
“We are putting stone tools in their hands,” said Alemseged (“Uh-lems-uh-ged”) of the California Academy of Sciences, who reports the finding with colleagues in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature. |
26 Company job openings drop for 2nd straight month
By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Economics Writer
2 hrs 51 mins ago
| WASHINGTON – Company job openings fell for the second straight month in June, a sign that hiring isn’t likely to pick up in the coming months.
The data comes after a weak employment report Friday that showed businesses aren’t adding enough new workers to bring down the unemployment rate, currently 9.5 percent.
Wednesday’s report, known as the Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey, or JOLTS, suggests that won’t change anytime soon. |
27 Stocks fall sharply as investors’ gloom grows
By STEPHEN BERNARD, AP Business Writer
6 mins ago
| NEW YORK – Stocks and interest rates tumbled Wednesday as investors around the world took a bleaker view of the U.S. economy.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 265 points, its biggest drop in six weeks, and all the major indexes fell more than 2 percent. The yield on the Treasury’s 10-year note fell to its lowest level since March 2009 as investors worried about the economy and avoiding stocks sought the safety of government securities.
Companies across a wide range of industries dropped Wednesday. Only 442 stocks rose on the New York Stock Exchange, while 2,627 fell, a sign that investors expect all businesses to suffer if the economy continues to weaken. |
28 Primary winners highlight political inexperience
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
Wed Aug 11, 11:56 am ET
| WASHINGTON – All hail inexperience – the less familiarity with politics the better, no matter the party or state.
“The support of the voters of Connecticut isn’t bestowed by the establishment or the pundits or the media. It isn’t a birthright,” former World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon said after winning the GOP senatorial nomination in her first run for office.
Two mountain ranges away, appointed Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, tried to express the same sentiment after dispatching his rival, a former state house speaker. “This election is the first time my name has ever been on the ballot,” said Bennett, who enjoyed President Barack Obama’s support in the bitter Democratic primary. |
29 Russian fires threaten to stir Chernobyl radiation
By MANSUR MIROVALEV, Associated Press Writer
Wed Aug 11, 12:07 pm ET
| MOSCOW – Wildfires threatened to stir radioactive particles left over from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster back into the air over western Russia, and authorities boosted forest patrols to keep the flames from contaminated areas.
Environmentalists and forest experts warned that the radioactive dust could be harmful, even though doses would likely be small.
“The danger is still there,” Vladimir Chuprov of Russian Greenpeace told The Associated Press. |
30 Trade gap likely points to slower economic growth
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
Wed Aug 11, 1:03 pm ET
| WASHINGTON – A decline in exports and a sharp rise in imports pushed the U.S. trade deficit in June to its widest point since October 2008, raising new concerns about the weakening economic recovery.
The $49.9 billion gap is worrying economists, who fear it means the U.S. economy grew at half the rate in the April-to-June quarter than first estimated by the government last month.
The trade deficit jumped 18.8 percent in June compared to May, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. |
31 Observing Ramadan? There’s an app for that
By SAMANTHA HENRY, Associated Press Writer
Wed Aug 11, 1:28 pm ET
| PATERSON, N.J. – The most ancient traditions of Islam are going high-tech, with a slew of modern offerings for those observing the holy month of Ramadan, which begins this week.
Cell phone applications such as “iPray” or “iQuran” offer a beeping reminder of requisite prayer times, while the “Find Mecca” and “mosque finder” programs help the Muslim traveler in an unfamiliar city find the nearest place to pray.
“When I saw these applications for the first time, I thought: this is amazing,” said James Otun, who has several Islamic applications on his Apple iPhone and iPad. “Whoever came up with this idea: God bless him or her.” |
32 Rangel: ‘Don’t leave me swinging in the wind’
By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer
Tue Aug 10, 9:39 pm ET
| WASHINGTON – A combative Rep. Charles Rangel told the House on Tuesday he’s not resigning despite 13 charges of wrongdoing and demanded the ethics committee not leave him “swinging in the wind.”
Rangel, who is 80, spoke without notes in an extraordinary, often emotional 37-minute speech that defied his lawyers’ advice to keep quiet about his case.
The New York Democrat and 40-year House veteran had a sharp message in dismissing fellow Democrats who, worried about election losses, want him to quit: “If I can’t get my dignity back here, then fire your best shot in getting rid of me through expulsion.” |
33 Obama signs emergency bill to halt teacher layoffs
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer
Tue Aug 10, 9:39 pm ET
| WASHINGTON – Summoned back from summer break, the House on Tuesday pushed through an emergency $26 billion jobs bill that Democrats said would save 300,000 teachers, police and others from election-year layoffs. President Barack Obama immediately signed it into law.
Lawmakers streamed back to Washington for a one-day session as Democrats declared a need to act before children return to classrooms minus teachers laid off because of budgetary crises in states that have been hard-hit by the recession.
Republicans saw it differently, calling the bill a giveaway to teachers’ unions and an example of wasteful Washington spending that voters will punish the Democrats for in this fall’s elections. The legislation was approved mainly along party lines by a vote of 247-161. |
34 New Kia Sportage makes many changes
By ANN M. JOB, For The Associated Press
Wed Aug 11, 12:41 pm ET
| The 2011 Kia Sportage is the ritziest Sportage sport utility vehicle ever, and yet it only comes with a four-cylinder engine.
It’s not as odd a combination as it sounds. The 2.4-liter four cylinder can generate as much horsepower as last year’s Sportage V-6 and makes the SUV feel comfortably powered while earning higher fuel economy ratings from the federal government.
Meantime, the 2011 Sportage’s sleek new exterior and new features, such as panorama glass roof and Microsoft in-vehicle communication and entertainment system, give Kia’s least expensive SUV a pleasantly modern atmosphere. Best of all, the new Sportage includes surprising items that aren’t standard in many competitive models. For example, even the base Sportage has standard Bluetooth wireless connectivity, satellite radio that has three free months of service, and steering wheel-mounted controls for audio and Bluetooth. |
In a perhaps unintentional and obtuse twist of sardonic wit and possibly complete unawareness of the irony of his own words, Commander of
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