around_the_world_today_Jan_09

                            AROUND THE WORLD: JANUARY 6th - 30th, 2009

MARCH 08 APRIL 08 MAY 1st - 20th, 08 MAY 21st - 31st, 08 JUNE 1st - 15th, 08 JUNE 16th - 30th, 08 JULY 1st - 19th, 08 JULY 20th - 31st, 08

AUG 1st - 12th, 08    AUG 13th - 22nd, 08    AUG 23rd- 31st, 08    SEPT 1st - 12th, 08 SEPT 13th - 26th, 08 SEPT 27th - 30th, 08 OCT 1st - 18th, 08

OCT 19th - 31st, 08    NOV 1st - 17th, 08    NOV 18th - 30th, 08 DEC 1st - 21st, 08 DEC 22nd - 24th, 08

Subject: Around the World Today: Friday 30th January 2009

THAILAND: Some 118 people have fallen ill, with 60 being admitted to hospital, after consuming fried silkworm believed to contain the toxic substance histamine.

USA: The U.S. Homeland Security Department yesterday announced it would review measures aimed at preparing the country's medical system to handle a massive influx of patients after a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack. MORE AT: http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20090129_4380.php

USA: Missouri - More than 100,000 homes and businesses in southern Missouri were without power Wednesday; and many could remain dark for days to come � after a two-day winter storm dumped snow, sleet and ice over much of the state.

SCOTLAND: A rescue operation was under way last night to evacuate almost 200 people stranded on a car ferry in the port of Stranraer, after a lorry broke free and burst through the ship's rear doors when it was halfway across the Irish Sea.

BULGARIA: EADS Secure Networks (SN), an integrated activity of EADS Defense & Security, has been awarded by the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance a contract to deliver a TETRA radio communication solution to the National Fire Safety and Protection of Population Service (NFSPPS).

KENYA: Thirty-nine people are missing and one person is dead after a fire destroyed a crowded supermarket in Nairobi, Kenya's Red Cross says.

Subject: Around the World Today: Thursday 29th January 2009

FRANCE: As a result of heavy storms, 6 departments are under orange alert for rain and floods, 11 people were killed, 62 seriously injured and 258 slightly injured. Source: MIC

WESTERN BALKANS: Heavy snowfall has led to the collapse of road and electricity networks in Austria, Hungary and Slovenia. Strong winds are also causing havoc in Montenegro. In Austria, two people have died and 13,000 homes have been left without electricity after heavy snow storms. Snowfall in Slovenia has led to breakdowns in the electrical network. In the Varaždin district in Croatia, 1,000 homes have been left without power after heavy blizzards. Emergency teams are on alert with meteorologists forecasting further showers.

INDONESIA: An earthquake struck eastern Indonesian, causing some panic in parts of Timor island. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage. The earthquake was measured at 6.0 on the Richter scale and its epicentre was on land about 100 km northeast of Kupang in East Nusa Tenggara province. The depth was put at a relatively shallow 10 km, although no tsunami warning was issued.

COLOMBIA: Colombian emergency officials have begun evacuating 800 families from an area at high risk from the expected eruption of a volcano that killed at least six people in November. The Nevado del Huila volcano is on orange alert, meaning an eruption is probable within days or weeks, the Colombian Institute of Geology and Mining said last week. An eruption would cause an avalanche down the Paez and Simbola rivers, officials said.

USA: Multi-State - Tree limbs snapped with a sound like gunshots, blacking out thousands of homes and businesses, and schools and government offices were closed Tuesday as a major storm spread a glaze of ice and snow from the southern Plains to the East Coast. At least 19 deaths had been blamed on the weather. Entergy reports more than 296,000 of its customers are without power in Arkansas on Wednesday morning, crews are finding major damage.

AUSTRALIA: Queensland Health says 201 residents have already been infected by dengue fever in Cairns, with most of the wet season still to come. The city's worst outbreak was in 2003 when 498 people contracted the mosquito-borne disease.

CANADA: After 15 ice-bound hours, 38 passengers on a ferry from Les de la Madeleine to P.E.I. are underway once more. The ferry was scheduled to arrive in the eastern P.E.I. town of Souris at 1 a.m. Wednesday, and is now expected at 4 p.m. They got stuck in the ice and they had to wait for the icebreaker, the Sir William Alexander, to come and meet them to try to open a path for them.

JAPAN: While we're still fawning over tiny e-paper displays in e-book readers, the Japanese government is installing panels in Tokyo to aide evacuation in disaster situations a very good idea, as it turns out. FULL STORY: http://i.gizmodo.com/5139935/tokyos-e+paper-disaster-signs-help-you-escape-earthquakes-godzillas or http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/01/27/tokyo-uses-e-paper-as-disaster-prevention-measure/ or http://www.examiner.com/r-5890148~E_paper_signs_being_tested_in_Tokyo_for_disaster_prevention.html

AUSTRALIA: Australia's south-east is still enduring a massive heatwave, with Adelaide reaching 45.5 degrees Celsius early this afternoon. The Bureau of Meteorology says some country towns are even hotter, with 46.2C recorded at Ceduna on the Eyre Peninsula. Forecaster Simon Timkey says this is the closest Adelaide has come to its hottest ever day. Melbourne, host city for the Australian Open tennis competition, is preparing for its longest heat wave in a century, which may push energy demand to records.

ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak has killed over 3,000 people and infected more than 57,000 Zimbabweans, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.

ENGLAND: North West - Doctors are warning Halton residents to be on their guard against the threat of meningococcal diseases such as meningitis and septicaemia. Dr. Catherine Quigley, North West regional epidemiologist at the Health Protection Agency, believes that this time of the year brings a peak in the infection and suggests that everybody should be aware of its symptoms. The advice is being issued after new figures revealed that 56 cases of meningococcal infection were recorded in the North West in the last six weeks.

BRAZIL: A boy 12 years of age died this morning (25 Dec 2008) in Brasilia, confirming the suspicion of rabies following a bat bite.

INDIA: Six women were killed and five injured, one of them seriously, in a firecracker factory blast near Neknoor village in Beed district on Wednesday.

PHILIPPINES: At least five people have been killed and 32 others wounded in a powerful explosion that tore through a firecracker factory south of the Philippine capital, police and officials said. The mid-morning explosion also triggered a fire that gutted the Star Maker factory in a town around 50 kilometres south of Manila, officials said.

BOLIVIA: Bolivia has declared a health emergency as a dengue fever epidemic spreads throughout much of the country. Health officials say it is the worst outbreak in 22 years and at least three people are known to have died from the disease.

HUNGARY: A total of 50,000 people have been left without electricity due to heavy snowfall in Zala and Vas counties. The snow was about 20cm deep in Lenti, Zalal, Vasvr, Krmend and Kriszentpter. The heavy snowfall cut off 120 small villages in the two counties and falling trees damaged 60-70 electricity pylons and tore down overhead cables. Electricity had not been restored by yesterday evening.

Subject: Around the World Today: Wednesday 28th January 2009

No information posted

Subject: Around the World Today: Tuesday 27th January 2009

EGYPT: The Egyptian Health Ministry confirmed on Sunday that a two-year-old baby has been infected with the bird flu virus, bringing the number of human cases of bird flu to 53 in the country. This is the second case of human bird flu reported in Egypt in 2009.

USA: Alaska - New seismic activity at Mount Redoubt increased significantly early Sunday and may be the prelude to an eruption, "perhaps within hours to days," the Alaska Volcano Observatory is reporting. Geologists upgraded the aviation color code for Redoubt from yellow to orange at 2:09 a.m. Sunday, indicating that an eruption may be imminent. The volcano, which lies about 50 miles west of Kenai and 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, last erupted over a four-month period, from 1989 to 1990.

ITALY: Calabria - At least three people were killed Sunday and four injured in southern Italy when rain triggered a landslide onto a highway, reporting on Sunday. Firefighters who pulled the dead and injured from the mud did not exclude that other people could be trapped under the landslide, which occurred on the main highway linking Salerno and Reggio di Calabria.

SPAIN: Hundreds of firefighters battled forest fires in northeastern Spain on Sunday that were sparked by violent winds in weekend storms that left 12 people dead. The largest fire scorched 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres) of land in the Valencia region, while two other blazes ate up around 145 hectares in Catalonia and another part of Valencia.

RUSSIA: Hundreds of birds died after fuel leaked into the Aniva Bay from the Sakhalin II plant in the southern Sakhalin Island, Russia's Far East, local divers said on Monday. The oil spill is believed to have occurred on Sunday after a tanker left the liquefied natural gas plant which is still under construction. The plant is owned by Sakhalin Energy which is the operator and investor for the $20 billion Sakhalin II project. Sakhalin Energy said it had no information about the oil spill. An investigation is underway.

INDONESIA: A landslide engulfed a hillside home in Semarang, Central Java, where 25 women were attending an Islamic gathering, killing four, on Sunday night. The landslide first uprooted the foundation of a house belonging to Musa Purnomo at Tembalang further up the slope. That foundation then rolled into the house of Heru Sunarto, where the 25 women had gathered.

FRANCE: Nearly 700,000 households remained without electricity in south-western France following the weekend's winter storm which killed at least nine people, French media reported Monday. In addition, many of the stricken homes were also deprived of drinking water because the pumps were powered by electricity.

AUSTRALIA: Over the the next five days, we are in for the longest heatwave experienced here in recorded times. Today will be the start of five days of unrelenting scorchers with temperatures soaring to the 40s. The last time Melbourne had a heatwave of this intensity was a century ago when it suffered through five days of stultifying heat with temperatures in the 40s in January 1908.

CHINA:
An earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale, which jolted northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Sunday, has affected more than 4,500 people and caused house collapses and damages, regional authorities said Monday. The earthquake occurred on 25.01.2009 at 9:47 a.m. in Qapqal, 700 km from the regional capital Urumqi.

CANADA: BC - The slaughter of up to 60,000 turkeys will likely begin at a commercial farm in B.C.'s Fraser Valley on Monday after tests showed some of the birds were infected with the H5 avian flu virus. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed Saturday that initial tests found a "low pathogenic" level of the virus at the farm near Abbotsford, about 75 kilometres southeast of Vancouver.

LIBERIA: Army worms have now struck 65 towns across Liberia, leaving in their wake wells contaminated by faeces, fields empty of crops and markets devoid of food. The worms, which invaded Bong country in central Liberia on 15 January, have spread to Gbarpolu County in the northwest and to Lofa County, which borders Guinea and Sierra Leone.

SIERRA LEONE: Leone has launched a massive drive to ward of the threat of an invasion of crop destroying caterpillars already attacking neighbouring Liberia and Guinea, authorities said Monday.

TAIWAN: Taiwanese media reports that 4 primary students with symptoms of mild cold deteriorated within one day after seeking treatment. They are suspected to be infected with an unknown pathogen. One has died. Reports say that the 4 sick children 1st had mild colds, but sharply deteriorated within one day. Among them one girl could not be saved and another child is in grave condition. The hospital has ruled out influenza and gastrointestinal pathogens. Acute encephalitis caused by an unknown pathogen is suspected. The remains of the deceased have been sent to Taiwan CDC for analysis. The hospital stated that the patient's brain, liver, heart and hematopoietic function were affected by the pathogen. Encephalitis was determined to be the cause of death.

AUSTRALIA: WA - Onslow residents are starting to clean up after cyclone Domenic weaved a trail of destruction through the Pilbara town, with powerful wind gusts and heavy rain causing roofs to collapse, flooding and powerlines to come crashing down.

FRANCE: Lille - Sixty-five people have been taken to hospital for carbon monoxide poisoning after breathing the toxic fumes at a church concert near the northern French city of Lille, officials say. Among those admitted to hospital today were 16 children including choir singers, a regional administration said, updating an earlier toll of 24 in hospital. No one was in serious condition. Emergency services were called to the scene when one of the audience became ill, and after determining there were very elevated carbon monoxide levels in the air, evacuated the 250 people from the church in the town of Phalempin. Paramedics examined people in a nearby hall for symptoms of poisoning from the colourless and odourless yet highly toxic gas. Officials suspect the heating system released the gas into the poorly ventilated church.

SCOTLAND: A freight train laden with fuel burst into flames early today after crashing into pylons. Emergency services were called to a major incident around 6.25am on the outskirts of Stewarton, Ayrshire, on the Kilmarnock line. Six fire engines, a heavy rescue vehicle with its own support unit, a fire investigation team and control units were all at the scene to tackle the massive blaze, where 50ft flames lit up the sky. As dawn broke, the orange flames looked like a massive torch on the skyline, and a giant plume of smoke blew across nearby villages. It appears the driver of the 10-wagon freight train had a miraculous escape and did not suffer any injuries.

Subject: Around the World Today: Monday 26th January 2009

No information posted.

Subject: Around the World Today: Sunday 25th January 2009

KENYA: The United Nations is aiming to double food aid for Kenya to reach at least four million people because of a situation the World Food Programme described Friday as "catastrophic".

USA: New Jersey - A mysterious disease that has killed thousands of bats in New England has spread to New Jersey, perplexing wildlife officials and raising concerns of a possible increase in bugs and pests.

GEORGIA: A severe windstorm hit western Georgia on Saturday, breaking hundreds of trees, tearing roofs from hundreds of buildings and damaging electro-transmission lines. The most severe damage was done to the cities of Kutaisi and Poti and the Samtredia, Tskhaltubo ad Zugdidi districts. According to reports from Poti, two fishermen are missing. The windstorm, the severest in ten years, left 200,000 people without electricity. According to energy services, teams of specialists are working to repair the electro-transmission lines. They plan to resume electricity supply by Saturday night.

NEPAL:A patient from Damak, eastern Nepal, is a suspected case of human bird flu infection, reported on Sunday. Damak of Jhapa district is some 320 km east of Nepali capital Kathmandu. In mid-January, the first case of bird flu in poultry was detected in Kakarbhitta of the same district.

CHINA: A man in the southwestern Chinese province of Guizhou has been infected with bird flu and is in a critical condition in hospital, the Health Ministry said on Sunday. It is the sixth human case of bird flu to be reported in China this year.

TURKEY: Two mountaineers have been killed and at least 10 others were trapped after being caught up in an avalanche while camping on Zigana Mountain in Turkey's Black Sea province of Gumushane on Sunday. The group consisting of nearly 20 mountaineers was in the region for a winter festival. Sevgi Gultekin, one of the mountaineers, said the avalanche trapped at least 10 members of the group under meters of ice and snow. (Some reports say 10 dead)

Subject: Around the World Today: Saturday 24th January 2009

SPAIN: The strong winds on Saturday fanned the flames as a huge wildfire broke out in La Nucia, Alicante. Some 14,000 people in 25 different urbanisations have been evacuated from their homes in La Nuca, Benidorm, Sinestrat and Polop. The Terra Natura theme park in Benidorm has also been evacuated as well as the hotels in the Villaitana complex. It's thought that the collapse of a high tension pylon in the high wind was the cause of the fire. 200 firefighters are at the scene, aided by the Guardia Civil and Local Police, among others. Air support has been complicated by the very strong winds.

SPAIN: The strong winds and gales have continued to batter Spain over the start of the weekend, with forecasters saying the conditions will continue for a day or two more. Four children, aged between 9 and 12, were killed when the roof of a sports centre collapsed in the wind at 1130 Saturday morning in Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona. It happened in Calle Riera del Fonollar, when there were between 20-30 children in the centre. Winds in Sant Boi reached speeds of 110 kms/hour, taking the metal roof off the sports centre.

FRANCE: The most fierce storm in a decade also tore through the south west of France leaving at least 1.2 million homes without electricity. Airports in Bordeaux, Pau, Biarritz, and Toulouse have been forced to close. Train services have also ground to a halt, leaving several hundred passengers stranded in stations overnight. Road links are blocked and emergency services across nine departments are on red alert.

SWITZERLAND: In the Swiss Alps, gusts of more than 170 kilometers per hour were recorded while winds reached more than 150 kilometers per hour in the Jura mountains and central Switzerland, Swiss broadcaster Schweizer Fernsehen said on its Web site. Winds in the valleys of the Alps reached as much as 120 kilometers an hour.

SCOTLAND: Three people were killed in an avalanche in the Scottish Highlands on Saturday, police said. The three had become trapped while out with six others on Buachaille Etive Mor on Glencoe, near Fort Willliam. Two were rescued by helicopter and transferred to an ambulance before being taken to hospital, but blizzards prevented a second Sea King reaching the others. Mountain rescue teams then took over the search for the remaining members who were in at least two separate groups.

USA: Alaska - At 9:10 AM Alaskan Standard Time on January 24, an earthquake with preliminary magnitude 5.7 occurred 50 miles/80 Km west of Homer, Alaska.

ENGLAND: A man suffering from a rare tropical illness is under quarantine at a high security infectious diseases unit in London. The 66-year-old is suffering from Lassa fever, an infection which comes from the same family as the deadly Ebola virus. He is being treated at the Royal Free Hospital, where doctors describe his situation as "stable". It has been confirmed that he had recently been travelling in Nigeria.

AUSTRALIA: Queensland - Authorities in Mount Isa are assessing the damage after heavy rainfall overnight left the town flooded. Hundreds of millimetres of rain fell in a couple of hours overnight. Homes and businesses in the mining town have been flooded.

SOUTH AFRICA: Kruger National Park rivers have tested positive for cholera, an official said on Friday. Spokesperson Raymond Travers said this, however, the park's visitors and workers need not worry because there were adequate sanitation facilities in the area.

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO: The Ministry of Health would like to state that the autopsy report on 2 of the dead monkeys found recently in the forest, were positive for the yellow fever virus.

IRAQ: Babil - A mysterious disease, which doctors have not been able to diagnose so far, has spread in Babil province in the past few days. The regions of Al-Ghazali southeast of the province and the northern Babil Jurf al-Sakhar, have recorded a number of casualties from the disease. Doctors believe that a type of fungus infected the lungs and killed the injured 5 days after infection.

Subject: Around the World Today: Friday 23rd January 2009

BRAZIL: Incessant heavy rains from Wednesday in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state have caused eight landslides and several floods, killing at least seven people. According to state civil defense, more than 200 people have been displaced. The largest landslide took place on late Wednesday in the state's capital city of Rio, severing the Grajau-Jacarepagua Highway, one of the city's main highways, for over 14 hours.

JAPAN: Two people died and about 20 others sustained injuries after a 27-meter-long gangway at a shipyard in Oita, Kyushu Prefecture of Japan, collapsed Friday. The gangway to a ship that is under construction collapsed at around 9:30 a.m. at the Ozai shipyard of Minaminippon Shipbuilding Co., sending workers falling to the ground or into the sea, local fire department and police officials said.

USA: West Virginia - The 167th Airlift Wing in Berkeley County held the largest disaster drill in the history of the air base Thursday morning.In the exercise, more than 20 military personnel were sickened with anthrax after bringing souvenirs back from a tour in Afghanistan. http://your4state.com/content/fulltext/?cid=50661

INDONESIA: A 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit the Kepulauan Barat Daya region in Indonesia , according to the US Geological Survey.

CANADA: British Columbia - A still-unidentified strain of bird flu has been found on an Abbotsford turkey farm. It's not the first time, but it could be the most serious outbreak since the mass culling of 17 million Fraser Valley birds in 2004. A spokesperson for the industry, said the virus is probably a low-pathogenic strain. The 2004 avian flu outbreak was H7N3, a strain that is rarely dangerous to humans. Only low-path H5N1 has ever been identified in North America. The high-pathogenic strain has devastated Asian, African and European poultry industries since 2003, and infecting 399 humans. According to the World Health Organization, 251 of those cases have been fatal.

PHILIPPINES: At least one person has tested positive for the Ebola-Reston virus in the Philippines, where the disease has broken out in pigs at 2 farms north of the capital, the government said on Friday [23 Jan 2009]. Health Secretary Francisco Duque told a news conference that there was little immediate health risk but experts warned the virus's jump to humans was a concern.

Subject: Around the World Today: Thursday 22nd January 2009

GUINEA: The army worms that have devoured crops and plagued some 21 villages in central Liberia are now moving across the border to neighbouring Guinea, the Liberian agricultural minister warned Tuesday.

CHINA: A 16-year-old boy Tuesday became the third person to die of bird flu in China this month, authorities said, fuelling concerns of more deaths as the nation prepares to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

FRANCE: The crew of a Turkish tanker escaped unharmed after their vessel crashed into rocks and sank just outside the southern French port of Marseille overnight, the local maritime authorities announced Wednesday. The tanker was carrying 3,000 tons of wheat at the time, but local officials said had detected no pollution or any spillage of the cargo from the ship.

BOLIVIA: Bolivian officials have declared a health emergency after three deaths attributed to dengue hemorrhagic fever, the often-lethal form of a mosquito-borne disease that more than 1,000 Bolivians are thought to have contracted since November.

Subject: Around the World Today: Thursday 22nd January 2009

No information posted

Subject: Around the World Today: Tuesday 20th January 2009

SOUTH AFRICA: A total of 49 cases of cholera and 19 deaths have been confirmed in Mpumalanga.

USA: New Hampshire - A reported hydrogen leak at the Osram Sylvania plant prompted police and fire officials to evacuate the area and block some roads in downtown Manchester, N.H. The plants 200 workers were evacuated to another part of the building around 8:30 a.m. on Monday after a leak was discovered in a 9,000-gallon hydrogen tank.

BRAZIL: At least nine people have been killed and 93 injured when the roof of a church collapsed in Brazil's largest metropolis, Sao Paulo, the state's public security officials said on Monday. Nearly 600 people are believed to have been inside the evangelical Reborn in Christ Church, in the southern district of Cambuci, at when the roof collapsed on Sunday evening.

UGANDA: The health ministry has reported an outbreak of meningitis in Masindi district, a week after the deadly disease was reported in Hoima and Arua districts. The director of clinical services in the ministry, Dr. Kenya Mugisha told The New Vision yesterday that 15 cases of meningitis had been reported in Masindi, with four deaths.

MADAGASCAR: Cyclones ERIC 09 and FANELE 09 bracket Madagascar. As Eric leaves Fanele looks like it will sweep in.

AUSTRALIA: Australia's tropical Queensland state on Thursday declared a flood disaster over an area the size of France and Germany after recent monsoon storms. Thirty Queensland communities covering 969,000 square km (374,000 sq miles) were declared disaster zones by the state's emergency services minister, Neil Roberts, including many outback and rural communities.

AUSTRALIA: Queensland Health is setting up an incident management team in Cairns to combat the spread of type 3 dengue fever across the city. Doctors are now officially describing the outbreak as an epidemic, with more than 160 cases of the mosquito-borne disease reported in recent weeks.

!! INDIA: Travel Risks - A broken branch of a tree swept more than 150 people off the roof of a moving train in a northern Indian state, killing at least three people and seriously injuring about 60, police said on Tuesday. The victims, most of them young men headed for an army recruitment centre in Uttar Pradesh state, climbed to the roof of the train on Monday night, but their journey turned tragic after a broken branch of a tree knocked them off in the dark. Police said some of the men had chosen the roof because they could not enter the packed coaches, while others did not have a ticket.

Subject: Around the World Today: Monday 19th January 2009

JAPAN: An influenza outbreak in the Tokyo metropolitan area has resulted in three deaths, health officials said Saturday. The Tokyo metropolitan government's public health bureau said 101 flu cases had been confirmed at a hospital in suburban Machida. A total of 77 patients and 24 employees fell ill at Tsurukawa Sanatorium Hospital, the Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health said. The hospital has been inspected and steps were being taken to halt the spread of the illness.

CHINA: A two-year-old girl is in critical condition at a hospital in northern China after becoming infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus, state media said on Sunday, the second case in China in as many weeks.

IRELAND: Severe storms caused power cuts in 40,000 Irish homes yesterday afternoon. The west and the south-west were the areas worst affected by the blackouts, according to the Electricity Supply Board.

RED SEA: Hundreds of people are missing and feared dead after three boats carrying about 400 migrants from Somalia capsized yesterday near Yemen, a U.N. official said. At least a dozen bodies have washed ashore in Yemen, said Laila Nassif, who heads the United Nations High Commission for Refugees office in the coastal city of Aden. Nassif said two boats carrying some 300 migrants capsized in the Red Sea. Only 30 people have been rescued so far, and rescue efforts were complicated by bad weather in the area, Nassif said. In another incident, a boat carrying 120 migrants capsized in the Arabian Sea and 80 of the migrants made it safely to shore, Nassif said. All of the ships originated in Somalia, the U.N. official said.

AFGHANISTAN: An avalanche in northern Afghanistan cascaded over a line of vehicles on a mountain pass killing 10 people. The avalanche smothered three vehicles as they traveled up the Salang Pass on Friday, said Khalilullah Ziai, a police official. Authorities recovered all the bodies. The Salang tunnel is a high mountain passage that connects Kabul with the country's northern provinces.

KENYA: Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Friday declared food shortages facing 10 million people a "national disaster" and launched an appeal for 400 million dollars in foreign aid.

VANUATU: On 1/19/2009 3:35:24 AM UTC an earthquake of magnitude 6.9 and depth 52.2km has struck close to Vanuatu. It is likely that a tsunami was generated. The maximum tsunami wave height near the coast of Vanuatu will be 0.3m.

ENGLAND: A Russian cargo ship lost 1,500 tonnes of timber in rough seas off the Sussex coast as wild weather battered Britain. Storms over the weekend left one woman dead and more strong winds and torrential rain are said to be on the way. The weekend saw torrential rain and powerful winds reach speeds of more than 100mph in parts of the UK, toppling trees and cutting off power lines.

ROMANIA: Eight miners and four members of the rescue team were killed by two consecutive explosions in the Romanian coal mine Petrila. Other 14 miners were injures, six of them being in a critical stage. Rescue teams managed to recover four bodies so far. The first explosion took place on Saturday, at noon, at a 950 meters depth, due to methane gas accumulation. A second explosion occurred during the evening, killing or injuring members of the recue teams. An official in the Health Ministry says that it is possible for other 16 - 19 people to be captive in the galleries.

Subject: Around the World Today: Sunday 18th January 2009

No information posted

Subject: Around the World Today: Saturday 17th January 2009

RUSSIA: Three people were killed and another five injured in an explosion that ripped through a plant in the Urals city of Nizhny Tagil on Friday, a local police source said. The blast occurred at the Uralvagonzavod factory that manufactures tanks, freight cars, cistern cars and flat wagons at 1:42 p.m. local time (08:42 GMT).

NORWAY: Officials say all 10 crew were recused after a Malta-registered freighter ran aground in a Norwegian fjord and began to sink. The crew of the Mirabelle were picked up by a passenger boat in Norway's Hardangerfjord.

SOUTH AFRICA: Eastern Cape department of health officials were attending to a suspected rabies outbreak in Mgwenyane village near Libode on Friday, the department said. Spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the department had dispatched an outbreak team to the village after at least eight people were bitten by two dogs in the village.

ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic has continued its rapid spread, with the death toll at 2,225 as of Friday, the United Nations said in Geneva. According to the agency, 42,675 people have been infected with the waterborne disease.

FINLAND: A botulism outbreak has struck a poultry farm in western Finland. Authorities report that a large number of birds have already died from the illness. The remaining infected birds are to be culled. The Finnish Food Safety Authority (Evira) said the birds were infected with the Clostridium botulinum bacterium which causes botulism.

AUSTRALIA: Queensland Health says there are now at least 149 cases of dengue fever across two separate outbreaks in Cairns and Townsville. That is 27 new cases since Wednesday. Queensland Health is planning to increase the number of environmental health officers to work on mosquito control.

AUSTRALIA: Residents of the Northern Territory town of Daly Waters are being urged to continue to drink boiled or bottled water after the detection of E coli bacteria in the local drinking water.

Subject: Around the World Today: Friday 16th January 2009

USA: New York City - Plenty of news elsewhere about US Air emergency landing on Hudson River. All I want to add is that I'm sure this list recognises the tremendous job of the Pilot, Crew and responders in ensuring no lives were lost.

GERMANY: Around half a million turkeys have been culled since December in a bird flu outbreak sweeping an area of northern Germany, officials said Thursday. Some 38,000 birds were killed this week on three farms near the town of Cloppenburg, about 100 kilometres south of Hamburg. Some 14,700 of the birds were infected with the H5N3 strain, which is not harmful to humans. The others were put to death as a precaution. Officials set up an exclusion zone around the affected farms.

MALAYSIA: Strong waves sweeping in from the South China Sea destroyed a dozen houses at Kampung Pasir Pandakon Wednesday evening.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: A family fisheries base at Nangagu, East Rennell, was totally destroyed when two huge waves struck the shorelines of East Rennell this week.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: A 5.7-magnitude earthquake struck the Solomon Islands early Friday, the US Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The quake struck at 0315 (1615 GMT Thursday), 170 kilometres (105 miles) southeast of the capital Honiara, at a depth of 95 kilometres. No tsunami warning was issued.

USA: The U.S. government said it has awarded a $487 million contract to Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics for cell-based flu vaccines. Novartis will be the first U.S. facility to manufacture cell-based vaccines, which can be made faster and in greater quantities than traditional influenza vaccine.

RUSSIA / JAPAN: A powerful 7.3-magnitude earthquake has hit east of the Kuril Islands in the Pacific Ocean, which are disputed between Russia and Japan. Russian emergency officials on Thursday issued a tsunami warning for the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in eastern Russia after a powerful earthquake in the Pacific, RIA Novosti news agency reported. Further tremors have hit east of the Kuril Islands in the Pacific Oceanin the following hours.

GERMANY: Germany's radiation protection office came in for criticism on Thursday after it revealed only this week that damage had been detected late last year at an old salt mine storing nuclear waste. The Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) discovered that chunks of the ceiling of a 750-metre (2,500-foot) deep chamber at the Asse site could crash on top of some of the 6,000 containers of radioactive waste.

NEPAL: Bird flu has been found in birds in Nepal, a minister said on Friday, the first time the virus has surfaced in the Himalayan nation.

CANADA: Ontario - A massive power outage swept across Toronto's west end Thursday night; one of the coldest nights of the year. With temperatures hovering around -17, flooding at a Toronto Hydro power station knocked out power.

Subject: Around the World Today: Thursday 15th January 2009

RUSSIA: On 1/15/2009 5:49:40 PM UTC (about 04:10h local time) an earthquake of magnitude 7.7 occurred in the unpopulated region of Sakhalinskaya oblast' in Russia. Russia eastern most coast. Tsunami risk may develop.

BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINAIR: Air pollution in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and several other towns has reached critical levels as Bosnians try to deal with gas shortages by using more basic, dirtier heating options such as fuel oil and firewood. The situation is worse in Sarajevo, where levels of carbon dioxide and other pollutants measured in the air were at least eight times the normal amount, local media reported on Wednesday, quoting the Sarajevo Meteorological Institute.

NEW ZEALAND: Last night was one of the most spectacular electrical storms ever seen as a huge thunderstorm moved up the Kaimai and Coromandel ranges then out to sea. The storm was responsible for dumping huge hail on the Kaimai Ranges, affecting motorists, and also causing a water spout near Great Barrier Island, flipping a 31-foot launch over.

Subject: Around the World Today: Wednesday 14th January 2009

SLOVAKIA: Slovakia is on the brink of a power blackout after a fire forced the partial shutdown of a coal power plant, said the Economy Minister Lubomir Jahnatek on Monday. Dominant power generator Slovenske Elektrarne, a unit of Italy's Enel, which operates the coal plant Novaky, said it continued to deliver contracted volumes of electricity to the power grid.

AUSTRALIA: Queensland - Cairns has been declared a disaster area after days of torrential rain and strong winds. Hundreds of homes and businesses have been flooded and roads have been cut, isolating regions.

FIJI: Heavy rain sparked fresh flash floods Tuesday in Fiji, where thousands of people huddled in emergency shelters and scores of homes were inundated by a brown tide of rising water. Officials posted the second severe flood warning in five days after a spate of tropical storms killed at least eight people on this Pacific island nation.

AUSTRALIA: South Australia - More than 100 volunteer firefighters and seven water-bombing aircraft were on Tuesday battling a forest fire that has claimed two houses near Port Lincoln on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula. The flames, fuelled by soaring temperatures and 50km/h winds, prompted Country Fire Service spokesperson Brenton Eden to warn that conditions would worsen.

USA: Vermont - A radioactive leak at Vermont Yankee is fixed. Yankee says the leak happened in the system that feeds the steam generator in the reactor. Yankee says the water was mildly radioactive and the leak was small. A routine inspection discovered the problem. What caused the leak is unknown, but the weld holding the pipe is the original one installed 37 years ago. Entergy Nuclear is now checking all similar welds. During the repair, the reactor reduced power to 40-percent. It is now back to full strength.

EGYPT: An Egyptian girl of 21 months has contracted bird flu and is in hospital in stable condition, a health ministry official said on Monday. She is the 52nd case among humans in Egypt and the second of this winter season.

SLOVAKIA: Strong detonation was heard from Slovakia's oil refinery Slovnaft on Monday around 9.30 p.m. This detonation was linked to the smooth launch of polyethylene unit, Slovnaft refinery corporate communication director Kristina Felova told TASR. (?) According to Felova, air decomposition on polyethylene unit number 7 occurred on Monday around 9.30 p.m., accompanied by a strong sound effect similar to explosion. This was an automatic depressing of the appliance. The detonation was heard in peripheral districts of Bratislava as well, people living nearby the refinery reported strong shakes. The explosion allegedly caused material damage in the refinery.

USA: Montana - A new series of what are described as a "modest swarm of earthquakes" began Friday in Yellowstone National Park, about 10 miles northeast of the north end of Yellowstone Lake, where a swarm of approximately 900 quakes had occurred between Dec. 26 and Thursday.

GERMANY: Blocks of ice up to 40 centimetres (16 inches) thick have closed long stretches of three German rivers to shipping, authorities said Monday as the cold snap claimed another fatality. After around 100 kilometres (60 miles) of the River Elbe were declared unnavigable on Friday, the ice was so thick along parts of the Mosel and the Main that vessels could no longer use these either.

USA: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) held the official opening of its newly constructed National Exercise Simulation Center (NESC) at FEMA Headquarters. The NESC provides a state-of-the-art facility to serve the all-hazards preparedness and response mission through pooling resources, maximizing efficiency and providing sustained exercise and training support to all stakeholders.

ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic has killed 1,937 people and a total of 38,334 have contracted the normally preventable disease, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.

ALGERIA / MORROCO: A mother and her five children were killed when a landslide struck their home in eastern Algeria on Tuesday. The landslide was triggered by heavy rains in the village of Chehna in Jijel province, some 360 km (225 miles) from the capital Algiers, APS cited emergency services as saying. Unusually heavy rains have hit Algeria and Morocco in recent months and dozens have been killed by flash floods, landslides, road accidents and collapsing buildings.

SOUTH AFRICA: Eastern Cape - A swarm of locusts has descended on farms in the Eastern Cape, destroying crops, the department of agriculture said yesterday.

UGANDA: Meningitis has killed nine people out of 42 patients in Arua district. The director for clinical and community health services in the health ministry, Kenya Mugisha, said most of the patients were from Dadama and Oluko sub-counties.

CAMEROON: A measles outbreak has hit the town of Maroua in northern Cameroon Extreme-Nord province, leaving 2 dead and over 160 infected. Medical officials in the town are on high alert to abate the progress of what they now refer to as an epidemic.

USA: Senior aides to President Bush and President-elect Barack Obama met at the White House this morning to conduct an unprecedented joint disaster exercise for transition leaders. The three-hour exercise brought together Cabinet members, nominees and senior outgoing and incoming White House officials to discuss how to respond to a hypothetical terrorist attack on transportation and other targets in multiple U.S. cities. The table-top drill followed 90 minutes of orientations and briefings in the West Wing situation room about federal laws and procedures to manage emergency incidents and to preserve the government's chain of command. FULL STORY: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2009/01/13/white_house_and_transition_off.html?wprss=the-trail

Subject: Around the World Today: Monday 12th January 2009

MALAYSIA: About 5,000 residents from nine villages in Jalan Singai, Bau near here were cut off due to landslides and floods following continous heavy rain since yesterday evening. The road that connects the nine villages was submerged up to the waist depth.

ROMANIA: Forty-three people have died in Romania since late December due to the extremely cold temperatures, the deputy secretary-of-state for health, Raed Arafat, announced Saturday. The dead included a three-month old baby, Arafat was quoted as saying by Newsin news agency. Romania has experienced a major cold snap, with temperatures dropping as low as minus 31 degrees Celsius.

VIETNAM: High waves destroyed at least 27 seaside houses in a southern Vietnamese resort at the weekend and were threatening over 100 more, emergency service officials said on Monday. There were no immediate reports of any casualties from Phan Thiet town, about 200km east of the southern business hub of Ho Chi Minh City. The buildings were destroyed when high waves pounded the shoreline, causing tens of thousands of dollars in property damage, said the provincial flood and storm control committee. Hundreds of soldiers, border guards and youth volunteers had been mobilised to stabilise more than 100 other buildings that were also threatened with collapse, said the report. In Ho Chi Minh City, meanwhile, high waves on Sunday broke part of a sea dyke, flooding more than 200 households.

PHILIPPINES & MALAYSIA: Extremely high waves and tides have caused damage and disruption in both these counteries over the weekend.

Subject: Around the World Today: Sunday 11th January 2009

INDONESIA: More than 260 people are feared dead or missing after an Indonesian ferry sank off Sulawesi island. According to a port official, the Teratai Prima, with more than 260 people on board, had radioed that it was "in the middle of a bad weather and hit by a storm" shortly before capsizing on Sunday night. A maritime official in western Sulawesi said: "A ferry with more than 250 people on board, plus 17 crew and one captain, sank with four crew surviving. "Search and rescue teams have been sent to the area." About 150 people have been taken off the boat, but it is not known whether they are alive or dead, Indonesia's transport minister said.

HUNGARY: The Budapest Mayor's Office says it has issued its first-ever smog alert and is imposing restrictions on car traffic and a ban on burning leaves. The decision Sunday came because suspended dust in the air in Hungary's capital has exceeded the limit of 100 micrograms per cubic meter for two days in a row. The smog increase is being caused partly by power plants that were forced to switch from natural gas to more polluting fuels after gas shipments from Russia through Ukraine to Europe were suspended last week. The mayor's office says the smog alert will be reviewed daily.

NIGERIA: At least three people were killed and 35 others hospitalized following the suspected outbreak of cholera at Dokogi village in Nigeria's Niger state. The villagers had alerted the authorities after a resident died from stool and vomiting. An eyewitness claimed that more people reported their cases as the situation worsened, leading to the death of two more people. He said the council later mobilized its medical personnel, including those of the Federal Medical Center, Bida, to control the spread of the disease.

Subject: Around the World Today: Saturday 10th January 2009

KENYA: Kenya is to declare a national emergency because of a drought affecting the East African country. President Mwai Kibaki's government warned that nearly 10 million people - more than a quarter of the population - were at risk from food shortages.

COSTA RICA: The death toll from a strong earthquake that rocked Costa Rica has risen to 14 with at least 22 people still missing, the Red Cross said Friday. The magnitude-6.1 quake shook the Central American nation Thursday afternoon, collapsing homes, setting off landslides that blocked major highways and trapping hundreds of people including foreign tourists in damaged mountain towns.

MADAGASCAR: At least 12 people died in Madagascar since last December, victims of bubonic fever, media reported today. City Tsiroanomandidy in western African island, is the epicenter of the disease which caused millions of deaths in Europe during the Middle Ages and now can be cured with hygienic measures and high doses of antibiotics. More than a dozen people are infected in this town by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, the cause of the disease.

PHILIPPINES: Two waterspouts dumped tons of water on at least three coastal villages here of this town Thursday evening, Vice Mayor Procopio Chang said Friday. Chang said the waterspouts were accompanied by "lighting strikes." He said residents of Barangay (village) Magoong heard a roaring sound around 7:30 p.m. before water swamped their village, Barangay Samburon and part of the poblacion (town center) area. "The water level was at five feet high and residents had to flee to higher ground," Chang said. No casualty was reported but the incident damaged property, including livestock and crops.

MALTA: Major Civil Protection Exercise based on an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale hit Malta Friday afternoon. The earthquake badly hit the former White Rocks Complex, which provided the ideal backdrop for the exercise. Civil Protection Department volunteers led by department officials, a small medical team and experts from the German Civil Protection Organisation,carried out the necessary interventions. Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici visited the operation and stressed the importance of such exercises for the sake of being prepared.

FIJI: More than 1,400 people have been evacuated from homes threatened by floodwaters in Fiji, where two men died crossing swollen rivers, according to reports Saturday from the capital Suva. Several towns, including Nadi, site of the Pacific island country's international airport, are under water, and a nighttime curfew has been ordered in the area to protect shops and other businesses from looting.

Subject: Around the World Today: Friday 9th January 2009

BULGARIA: In addition to the gas supply having been turned off by Russia the Bulgarian capital Sofia has been hit on Thursday by another big snowstorm. The snow has been falling without a break for many hours and all Sofia streets and boulevards are covered with more than 5 cm of fresh snow, on top of the slush and ice, left by a weekend storm. Bulgaria has taken emergency measures to deal with gas crisis after Russia cut off all natural gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine. Suspension of natural gas supplies from Russia forced the Bulgarian government to order rationing for utilities, schools and hospitals.

NEW ZEALANDS: Heat Wave / Tornado - Temperatures exceeding 40C are being reported in parts of Christchurch. Christchurch based weather analyst Richard Green said thermometers reached 40C in the early afternoon with the suburb of Barrington reaching 41C, 40C in Cashmere and 38C in Christchurch city. The official MetService temperature in Christchurch at 2pm was 34C. "This is like being in the outback of Australia," said Green. "It's been quite some time since I've experienced heat like this". The warm weather comes as the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) today forecast above average temperatures across New Zealand through to March. A tornado touiched down in Ortago damaging property and cutting power.

COSTA RICA: A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck Costa Rica on Thursday, killing a teenager as well as two children selling candy near a national park, stranding hundreds of tourists and damaging buildings in the capital. The quake triggered landslides in rural areas and tore apart a highway near the Poas national volcano park. Some 300 tourists were seeking shelter for the night in a valley where they had been visiting a waterfall when the road out was destroyed.

BRAZIL: Hundreds of passengers on a Swiss-owned cruise ship were stricken with severe vomiting and diarrhea caused by a mysterious ailment, Brazilian health officials said today. At least 340 victims have been sickened on the MSC Sinfonia, now docked in Salvador, Bahia, according to a spokeswoman for the National Agency for Sanitary Vigilance.

USA: Vermont - Vermont's lone nuclear power plant is cutting the amount of power it generates by 60 percent after finding a leak of mildly radioactive water. A spokesman for the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant says the system that supplies water for steam generation in the reactor was found Thursday to be leaking 60 drops per minute. Plant operators began reducing power about 12:10 p.m., and they plan to isolate the 24-inch pipe in order to begin repairing it. Spokesman Rob Williams says the leak is unrelated to one in a valve gasket that was reported Wednesday.

TANZANIA: Tanzania dispatched health officials to regions bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to contain a suspected Ebola outbreak, officials said.

USA: Washington State - Record levels of flooding hit Washington State over the past two days, causing widespread road closures and damage. A combination of record snowfall last month, rapidly warming temperatures and heavy rainfall created the disastrous conditions.

CANADA: BC - Chilliwack area suffering severe flooding.

PAKISTAN: Fire swept through a slum in the Pakistani city of Karachi early Friday killing 39 people, including 20 children, officials and witnesses said. The fire broke out at about 1 a.m. (2000 GMT) and quickly engulfed about 40 huts erected on a vacant piece of land surrounded by buildings in a congested city neighborhood.

BRAZIL: Yellow fever killed a person in Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul, the southern state's first death from the virus in more than four decades, indicating the lethal disease is spreading in Latin America.

MOZAMBIQUE: At least 15 people, most of them children, have been killed by flooding in the central Mozambican province of Manica, said Mauricio Viera, the provincial governor. Most of the deaths were recorded in Chimoio, capital of Manica. The victims died either in collapsed houses or by drowning in storm drains, it said. The Manica provincial government is holding emergency meetings to seek ways to help more than 100 families whose homes have been destroyed, Noticias said. Torrential rains in Mozambique since Dec. 24 have resulted in floods that washed away roads in the provinces of Manica, Sofala and Inhambane.

SPAIN: Cow tests positive for Mad Cow Disease.

Subject: Around the World Today: Thursday 8th January

PHILIPPINES: Animal and health experts said Wednesday they were conducting an investigation in the Philippines to determine whether the Ebola Reston virus recently discovered in pigs poses a threat to human health. About a dozen experts from the U.N., the World Health Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health were invited to Manila to help the government investigate the virus, first identified in October in the northern Philippines. The discovery not only marked the first time the virus has been found outside of monkeys, but also the first time it has been found in swine, a food-producing animal.

CENTRAL EUROPE: Arctic conditions gripped central Europe as temperatures in Germany and Poland plunged 25 degrees Celsius below zero (minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit) for a second day. A snowstorm in Milan brought air traffic to a halt. An unusually heavy snowfall accompanied by a cold snap paralyzed travel in sections of southern France on Wednesday, with the city of Marseille particularly badly hit, French media reported.

WALES: The water supply to around 6,000 homes and businesses in south Wales continues to be hit by freezing conditions which have brought problems across Wales. Welsh Water said it hoped to improve supplies in one of the Rhondda valleys, with water bowsers sent to streets and water tankers refilling supplies. It added two of the 24 bowsers had been stolen and another three vandalised. Frozen pipes to a local water treatment works had caused the problems, including intermittent loss of supply.

ROMANIA / OTHER EUROPEAN STATES: Romania declared a state of emergency on Wednesday as deliveries of Russian gas ceased entirely. But the government insisted the country had sufficient reserves to last up to 80 days. Governments across Europe declared states of emergency and ordered factories to close as Russia cut all gas supplies through Ukraine yesterday in their worsening dispute over unpaid bills. In Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, there were bitter memories of the Bosnian conflict from 1992-95, when the population cut down trees to try to stay warm or bought coal on the black market.

USA: Ohio - Nearly half a dozen businesses in Hamilton County, Ohio, were evacuated Wednesday due to a train derailment involving propane, an official says. Cincinnati Fire District Three Chief Glenn Coleman said the evacuations were caused by the derailment of three tanker cars carrying 90,000 gallons of liquid propane.

INDONESIA: At least 7,000 tons of fish bred in floating fish farms in Maninjau Lake, Agam regency, West Sumatra, died from poisonous sulfur and fish-feeding sediments stirred up from the lake bottom by recent storms.

USA: Colorado - Three windblown wildfires have destroyed at least two structures, jumped a major road and forced the evacuation of 11,000 homes outside Boulder, Colorado, fire authorities said on Wednesday.

USA: Washington State - For thousands of people, home Wednesday night became a church basement or a school gymnasium. Maybe they got lucky and stayed with a relative or friend. Heavy rain and surging rivers forced more than 30,000 people in Western Washington from their permanent homes.

AUSTRALIA: NSW - Thirteen people at Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital have tested positive to an infectious disease that is resistant to antibiotics. The patients who have tested positive to the superbug VRE have been isolated and the nurses who are treating them will not care for anyone else to ensure the bug does not spread any further.

INDIA: Marpur - Barely forty-eight hours after an epidemic like mysterious infection identified as 'highly infectious with cerebral infection' hit a tiny hamlet in the district, the conference hall of the Chief Medical Officer which was temporarily transformed to isolate the infected is now packed with patients as the number keeps mounting. Thirty eight people, including children, all hailing from Misao Lhahvom village were admitted at the District Hospital here since Saturday night for the yet to be diagnosed infection.

USA: A single strain of salmonella has sickened 388 people in 42 states, sending some to the hospital, over the past three months. There's only one problem — so far no one's been able to figure out what's causing it. The outbreak led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to increase its efforts to find the source this week, pulling in staff from other areas to work on the situation, says Frederick Angulo, deputy chief of enteric diseases.

ZIMBABWE: At least 1,732 people have died in Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic and the number of cases diagnosed has risen to 34,306, the World Health Organisation said Tuesday.

Subject: Around the World Today: Wednesday 7th January

MONSERRAT: There has been an increase in volcanic activity at Montserrat's Soufriere Hills, with ash being thrown more than 12 kilometers high and scattered throughout the entire island, forcing at least 70 residents to remove to other locations. Two explosions occurred on Saturday and, according to reports, the instrument that usually monitors the volcano did not give warning of the eruptions.

SUMATRA: Sulphur poisoning from volcanic activity is believed to be responsible for the deaths of some 7,000 tons of fish found in West Sumatra's scenic Maninjau Lake in the past two days, a provincial official said on Tuesday. Authorities and locals began gathering up floating dead fish on Monday. It reached 1,588 tons of fish on Monday but total could reach up to 7,000 tons.

CHINA: Chinese health authorities closed poultry markets for disinfecting in a province surrounding Beijing on Wednesday after a woman died of bird flu, the first such death in the country in almost a year. The 19-year-old woman died of the H5N1 bird flu virus after coming into contact with poultry in Hebei province, bringing the total death toll in China to date to 21.

USA: South Carolina - The study on the aftereffects of a chlorine gas disaster in South Carolina provides insight into how to prepare for the gas's release, the authors said. The study researches the aftereffects of the 2005 accident near Graniteville, S.C., in which eight people died at the scene and at least 525 people were treated in emergency rooms and 71 were hospitalized. Link: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/01/06/Study_looks_at_major_chlorine_disaster/UPI-89281231285500/

INDONESIA: On 1/6/2009 10:48:33 PM UTC an earthquake of magnitude 6.1 and depth 59km has struck an moderately populated area in the Irian Jaya Province (population: 1.7 million) in Indonesia.

UK: Temperatures plunged to -12C (10.4F) overnight, on the coldest night so far of Britain's big freeze. The low was at Benson, in Oxfordshire, as the cold snap of the last eight days is forecast to last into the weekend.

Subject: Around the World Today: Tuesday 6th January

CHINA: Fourteen people were killed in two explosions at illegal fireworks factories in China, state media reported on Sunday. Thirteen of them were killed in one blast Saturday afternoon at an abandoned brick kiln that had been illegally transformed into a fireworks factory in Weifang city in the eastern province of Shandong.

GERMANY: A 20-centimetre layer of snow blanketed parts of Germany on Monday, disrupting road, rail and air traffic. Tailbacks of up to 30 kilometres were reported on motorways across the country as the inclement weather caught many drivers by surprise. At least 1 person died and more than a dozen were injured in road accidents. In the eastern state of Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin, more than 100 accidents occurred between midnight and 8 am.

FRANCE / UK: The Met Office issues severe weather warnings as temperatures in the UK plummet as low as -10C (14F) overnight. Frances agency reports similar very cold conditions.

PHILIPPINES: A total of 4,607 families or 21,328 persons have remained in 14 evacuation centers in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City after flashfloods swept through villages over the weekend, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) said.

ARGENTINA: The yellow fever outbreak, which has already caused the death of 2 men in Misiones Province , could expand to - the forested areas in Salta, Corrientes, Chaco, and Jujuy provinces- , according to the nation's Ministry of Health.

GUATAMALA: At least 33 people died and 70 others were reported missing in a mudslide over the weekend in northern Guatemala, emergency services officials said Monday.The mudslide occurred Sunday in Los Chorros, a town in Quiche province, where more than 140 farmworkers decided to get out of the trucks transporting them and walk across an area affected by a mudslide that killed two people and left two others missing last month.

DR CONGO: The World Health Organization has confirmed that three people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo after being infected with the Ebola virus. The agency said it is investigating 36 other suspected cases in the country, including 12 deaths linked to the virus.

AUSTRALIA: Queensland - Two cases of dengue fever have been confirmed in Townsville in north Queensland, sparking fears of a new outbreak. Authorities further north in Cairns have been trying to contain a dengue outbreak for almost a month.

USA: Yellowstone Park - The recent earthquake swarm underneath Yellowstone National Park appears to be slowing down considerably. It's good news for the people at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory who monitored close to 500 small earthquakes in the area during a six-day stretch. It had been the most intense swarm of earthquakes in Yellowstone since 1985.

SOUTH AFRICA: Natal - The death toll in a storm that struck South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province over the weekend has risen to 18, said a government officials. Officials called the storm monstrous.

AUSTRALIA: Queensland - The New South Wales Rural Fire Service has declared a bushfire in the south of the state an emergency situation as the winds continue to pick up. The fire in the Moreton National Park has spread from an area of 60 hectares this morning to more than 300 this afternoon.

VIETNAM: A five-year-old Vietnamese girl who ate poultry has been infected with bird flu, the first human case reported in the country this year.

AROUND THE WORLD TODAY