around_the_world_today_Nov_08

               AROUND THE WORLD: NOVEMBER 18th - 30th, 2008

MARCH 2008    APRIL 2008    MAY 1st - 20th, 2008    MAY 21st - 31st, 2008    JUNE 1st - 15th, 2008    JUNE 16th - 30th, 2008

JULY 1st - 19th, 2008      JULY 20th - 31st, 2008      AUGUST 1st - 12th, 2008      AUGUST 13th - 22nd, 2008

AUGUST 23rd- 31st, 2008      SEPTEMBER 1st - 12th, 2008    SEPTEMBER 13th - 26th, 2008    SEPTEMBER 27th - 30th, 2008

OCTOBER 1st - 18th, 2008     OCTOBER 19th - 31st, 2008     NOVEMBER 1st - 17th, 2008

Subject: Around the World Today - Sunday 30th November

No information posted

Subject: Around the World Today - Saturday 29th November

USA: A Thanksgiving Day carbon monoxide leak at the Sheraton hotel in downtown Columbia sent 11 people to area hospitals and led to a temporary evacuation of the facility. On Nov. 27 at about 6:15 p.m., the Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue Services received a report of a gas leak at the Sheraton hotel on Wincopin Circle, according to Anna Hoffmann, a fire department spokeswoman. After evacuating the 10-story, 290-room hotel, firefighters determined that the source of the carbon monoxide leak was a laundry room in the basement of the hotel, Hoffmann said. In all, 26 people were treated for low levels of carbon monoxide poisoning, Hoffmann said.

LATVIA: More than 80 children have been infected with salmonella in the western Latvian city of Liepaja in the past 12 days, national health officials said on Friday. All of the children, aged between two and 10, were at kindergartens and schools serviced by the food company Maras Lacis. The company has been temporally shut down, a spokesman for the national food and veterinary service said. Of the infected children, 13 have been hospitalized. Salmonella is a potentially lethal infection that affects the gastrointestinal system.

NIGERIA: The Nigerian government has ordered an investigation after a locally made mixture used to suppress discomfort in babies cutting teeth killed 25 infants. The children were administered the mixture, My Pikin, at government-owned teaching hospitals across the country during November. Minister of Health Dr Hassan Lawal has also advised parents and hospitals against the use of the drug until the results of investigations into the medicine were revealed.

CHILE: Santiago - The Chilean Ministry of Health reported today [27 Nov 2008], that the number of deaths in the capital [Santiago] caused by an outbreak of listeriosis detected in Brie Lescure cheese has reached 5. The new report indicates that the 5 deaths occurred in one newborn, one young boy, 2 adults, and one immunocompromised person (the most recent victim.) Health authorities ordered the recall of Brie Lescure cheese after the bacterium [_Listeria monocytogenes_] was detected in a sample taken from the refrigerator of a 60-year-old man who contracted the disease. According to the official report, to date 91 ill persons have been registered, of which 42 percent are pregnant women, the group at greatest risk.

AUSTRALIA: NSW - People have been rescued from trees, cars and causeways after floodwaters cut Tamowrth, in northern NSW, in two. The Peel River peaked at almost 6m after more than 164mm of rain deluged the area over the past 24 hours, causing widespread flash flooding. The river peaked at 5.9m at about 9am (AEDT) on Saturday and West Tamworth remains cut off, the State Emergency Service (SES) says.

INDIA: Assam - Authorities in Assam have culled some 12,000 of the estimated 60,000 birds ordered to be killed after an outbreak of the deadly bird flu virus in the region, officials said Saturday. Culling operations are on in the district of Kamrup since Friday and so far about 12,000 chickens and ducks were killed, Manoranjan Choudhury, deputy director of Assam's veterinary department, told IANS. The culling is being carried out in 48 villages within a five kilometre radius of village Thakurchuba in Kamrup district, about 40 km west of Assam's main city of Guwahati. The poultry targeted includes ducks and chickens. About 20 Rapid Response Teams comprising about seven personnel, including a veterinarian, are engaged in the operation that is expected to continue for about a week until the entire area is depopulated of the estimated 60,000 poultry, Parthajyoti Gogoi, a central health ministry official said.

SRI LANKA: Three United Nations agencies are offering relief to tens of thousands of Sri Lankans who have been displaced from their homes after floods struck at least five districts in the north of the island nation this week. Aid agencies held a coordination meeting in the town of Jaffna today to plan their response to the floods, which follow several days of heavy rains, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported.

Subject: Around the World Today - Friday 28th November

PANAMA / JAPAN: On November 27 (Thu), the Government of Japan decided to provide emergency relief goods (blankets, sleeping pads) equivalent to about 10 million yen to the Republic of Panama, which has suffered from a disaster caused by the recent torrential rains.

COLOMBIA: State of alert declared in several Colombian states after ten people died by a major mudslide in the Southeastern city of Miranda. Heavy rains and floods devastated the region destroying over 40,000 hectares of crops, killing thousands of cattle and leaving people homeless.

BRAZIL: Six areas in Brazil's southern state of Santa Catarina declared a state of emergency and as many as 100,000 people are still trapped after landslides and raging rivers washed out roads and cut power. Houses and cars were buried under mudslides throughout the region, while trees and household items drifted through flooded streets.

INDONESIA: A 6-magnitude earthquake located at a depth of 36 kilometres struck in the waters off western Indonesia at 85 kilometres southwest of Bengkulu, a city on Sumatra island. There are no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

INDIA: At least 70 people were killed and thousands rendered homeless in incessant rains in the state as cyclone Nisha that has crossed the Tamil Nadu coast near Karaikal left behind a trail of destruction. The cyclone, which crossed the Tamil Nadu coast near Karaikal on Thursday, wreaked havoc there and in Nagapattinam, Cuddalore and Tiruvarur district, Met office said.

AUSTRALIA: NSW - State Emergency Service crews have been called to northern NSW after flash floods in the region. An SES spokesman said the town of Tamworth had received 150mm of rain since 9am (AEDT) today.

Subject: Around the World Today - Thursday 27th November

USA: Wildfire Consequences -- The health threat to city dwellers posed by Southern California wildfires like those of November 2008 may have been underestimated by officials. Detailed particulate analysis of the smoke produced by previous California wild fires indicates that the composition posed more serious potential threats to health than is generally realized, according to a new paper analyzing particulate matter.

KENYA: Kenya is preparing to counter a possible oil slick from a Saudi super-tanker seized by Somali pirates should efforts to free the vessel and its two million barrels of crude go awry, officials said Tuesday. Five days after the Sirius Star's capture on November 15, Kenyan maritime authorities carried out mock operations and readied teams for a possible oil spill.

BRAZIL: Hungry flood survivors looted supermarkets and emergency crews tried to get aid to nearly 80,000 people driven from their homes Wednesday, as rain-spawned mudslides and overflowing rivers killed at least 97 people and isolated cities in southern Brazil. Amid mounting misery in the disaster zone, at least 20 people were arrested for ransacking a supermarket in the hard-hit city of Itajai, where many streets were still submerged following torrential weekend rains, state media said. Besides food, the looters tried to cart away plasma TVs and a refrigerator, the Agencia Brasil news service reported. Nearly 100,000 people remained cut off by flooding in eight cities in Santa Catarina state, civil defense officials said in a statement.

GERMANY: Rhineland - 4 more British tourists have been admitted to hospital after an outbreak of a gastric virus [norovirus] on a River Rhine cruise. That makes a total of 8 passengers who have not been able to travel home, tour operator River Cruise Line said. The "Lady Anne" is docked at Boppard, around 60 miles west of Frankfurt, Germany after the spread of norovirus infection.

FRANCE: An Airbus A320 aircraft with five people on board crashed into the sea off the southwest coast of France on Thursday while on a training flight, regional authorities said. "An aircraft crashed at around 5.00 p.m. (1600 GMT) off the coast near Perpignan. It was an A320," said a spokesman for the maritime prefecture, the regional authority that covers the area in southwestern France. The A320 is one of Airbus's best-selling single-aisle airliners. Officials from the DGAC, the French civil aviation authority were checking reports of the crash. No further details were immediately available and there was no immediate comment from Airbus, a unit of European aerospace group EADS.

Subject: Around the World Today - Wednesday 26th November

COLOMBIA: Some 50,000 people suffered damage to their property in north-western Colombia after the Cauca river overflowed following heavy rains, regional authorities said Tuesday. The Cauca - a tributary of the Magdalena river, the largest in Colombia - broke its levees on Tuesday and completely flooded the town of Nechi, in the province of Antioquia, some 400 kilometres north of Bogota.

USA: California - A passenger with contagious disease has been isolated during a flight from Asia to the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), prompting federal health officials to launch an investigation, authorities said on Sunday [23 Nov 2008]. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) got involved soon after it was determined the passenger had some sort of food poisoning or other stomach problem, city fire officials said. Some 343 passengers and crew were held aboard the United Airlines jet for nearly an hour before they were allowed to deplane, officials said. Los Angeles City Fire spokesman Cecil Manresa said paramedics were called to LAX Terminal 7 early Sunday morning [23 Nov 2008] by United Airlines. By the time the rescue team had arrived, a representative from CDC was already on the plane's upper deck, where the sick person had been isolated by airline crew. Passengers of the United Airlines jumbo jet, inbound from Bangkok and Tokyo, were held at gate 74 while the CDC representative sought to determine whether the sick person on board was highly contagious.

AUSTRALIA: Severe thunderstorms are in full swing near Esperance as residents across the southern and eastern parts of West Australia brace for the onslaught of severe storms forecast by the Bureau of Meteorology today. Salmon Gums, north of Esperance, has already received more than 18mm of rain today, while Hopetoun North has so far received more than 15.5mm. In the wheatbelt town of Karlgarin, 320km South-East of Perth, Ted and Colleen Francis saw early morning hail transform the local bowling green into a white layer of ice.

INDIA: Tamil Nadu - Floods caused by a tropical storm swamped one of India's biggest cities and killed 10 people in adjoining areas, forcing authorities to move people to higher ground, officials said on Wednesday. Heavy rains brought down houses, uprooted trees and damaged crops in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, officials and witnesses said. Hundreds of people from low-lying areas in the city of Chennai, the state capital, were moved to higher grounds. Snakes moved into flooded homes in Chennai, forcing people to flee. Some called wildlife parks to get the reptiles removed.

BURUNDI: At least 42 people have been afflicted in an outbreak of cholera in the north-eastern province of Cibitoke, according to health officials. "The rate of infection keeps on rising," Martin Bayisingize, the provincial director of health, said. The disease was confirmed to be cholera. Several localities in the Rugombo commune of the province have been affected, Bayisingize said. Rugombo does not have a supply of clean drinking water, he said. The Red Cross is disinfecting the households of those affected by the disease.

BRAZIL: The death tool rose to 84 and thousands of people remained cut off from aid, clean water and power after heavy rains triggered landslides in the areas of Santa Catarina state in southern Brazil. Medicine, food, and other basic supplies began to arrive from the federal government and neighbouring states.

INDIA: At least 32 people have died in floods caused by a tropical storm in southern India and thousands more have been evacuated to higher ground in the city of Chennai, the state capital. Authorities said the storm was expected to cross the Tamil Nadu coast late on Wednesday and gradually weaken.

UNITED STATES: Rains swept across Southern California on Wednesday, bringing flash flood warnings to areas already burned by wildfire. A torrent of early morning showers spurred an evacuation order in Orange County, where at least 1,500 people in Yorba Linda were told to leave their homes.

GHANA: More than 20 people were killed and many others seriously injured when a tanker truck carrying fuel caught fire after it crashed in western Ghana on Wednesday. The tanker crashed near the town of Tanoso, some 240 km from the capital Accra and close to Ghana's border with Ivory Coast. The vehicle exploded in flames as local people were collecting spilled petrol.

Subject: Around the World Today - Tuesday 25th November

IVORY COAST: At least 16 people including several children have died of food poisoning after eating maize porridge in a village in central Ivory Coast, the health ministry said on Monday. All of those who died in the village in the Bongouanou district, 200 km (120 miles) north of the commercial capital Abidjan, had consumed maize meal sold by a local woman, ministry spokesman Simeon N'Da said.

ZIMBABWE: As Zimbabwe battles a nationwide cholera outbreak that has so far killed around 300 people, a surge in anthrax has also hit the south of the country, claiming the lives of villagers and their livestock. Matabeleland North provincial medical director, Dr Gibson Mhlanga, confirmed the deaths of two people from anthrax, but a report in the official The Chronicle newspaper said six had died and over 200 cattle had been wiped out in the province's Dongamuzi area near Lupane, 120km north of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city.

SOUTH AFRICA: More than 1 000 Zimbabwean cholera patients have been treated at two South African hospitals - 1 000 in Beitbridge hospital and 168 at Musina hospital, South African health officials said Monday.

USA: Washington State - Crew members of a research ship say they were surprised to find a volcano more than 10,000 feet underwater off the coast of Washington. Jeremy Weirich, the operating officer on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship Okeanos Explorer, said the volcano was found while crew members were testing a new mapping program on underwater topography 200 miles off the Washington coast, The Seattle Times said Monday.

USA: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in its latest update on the nation's seasonal influenza activity, reported on a person who was infected with a swine influenza virus following several exposures to pigs, including a sick one. The CDC said the patient was infected with a swine influenza A/H1N1 virus. H1N1 and H3N2 swine flu viruses are endemic in US pig populations. In September, researchers from the CDC and public health officials from Wisconsin published a case report in Emerging Infectious Diseases on a healthy 17-year-old boy who had mild respiratory symptoms in December 2005, 3 days after helping his brother-in-law butcher pigs.

ENGLAND: Health officials are warning of a potential measles epidemic in South Warwickshire. The Health Protection Agency has been notified of 27 suspected cases, most of them in children under the age of 10; 12 cases had been reported by 10 Nov 2008.

RUSSIA: On 11/24/2008 9:02:58 AM UTC an earthquake of magnitude 7 and depth 487km has struck an unpopulated area in the Kamchatskaya oblast' Province (population: -0.1 million) in Russia.

Subject: Around the World Today - Monday 24th November

RUSSIA: Strong winds on the night of 23 November damaged the infrastructure in seven central Russian regions, temporarily leaving about 50,000 people without power. Although bad weather regularly causes power-supply cuts throughout Russia during winter months, the power-generation infrastructure is also inadequate to meet energy demand because of insufficient investment in the 1990s and rapid increases in demand over recent years.

ENGLAND: A sheep imported from France to Gloucestershire has tested positive for bluetongue. Defra confirmed the results in one animal sheep on a county farm and six imported cows on a Dorset farm. They too were from France.

SWEDEN / FINLAND / RUSSIA / LATVIA / ESTONIA: Blizzards and severe storms have impacted across these countries in the past 24hrs. In Tallinn a roof of a five-storey collapsed under the weight of snow. At least 2,000 households remained without electricity in different parts of Finland in the wake of Sunday's snowstorm. Hurricane-strength gusts were reported north of the Swedish capital. The storm left 2,000 Russian towns and villages with 250,000 residents without electricity.

BRAZIL: Twenty people have been killed and some 16,000 left homeless in a fierce storm that has lingered in southern Brazil over the past few days, the civil defense department said Sunday. The storm has affected some 1.5 million people in the southern state of Santa Catarina. It also triggered mudflows and led to the collapse of bridges and dams. Four cities in Santa Catarina were cut off from surrounding areas due to the storm, which has also downed power and water lines and caused food shortage in many regions. Santa Catarina authorities have declared a state of emergency in the state and appealed for aid from the federal government as well as nearby state governments. Santa Catarina has been hit by continuous storms in the last two months. Meteorological forecasts said the storm will last several more days.

NICARAGUA: Nicaragua's San Cristobal volcano is spewing ash and gas, provoking a shudder of small earthquakes. The Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies says the volcano has been erupting for two days, causing quakes of up to magnitude-4.

CHINA: Only 19,000 victims of the devastating earthquake that struck China's southwest six months ago have been identified, fewer than a quarter of the total dead or missing, a top official said Friday.

AUSTRALIA & INDONESIA: Australia and Indonesia announced Saturday they were establishing a new joint facility in Jakarta that would aim to reduce the impact of disasters in the Asia-Pacific region through analysis and training. The Disaster Reduction Facility will be operational with a staff of 12-14 in April and will be funded to the tune of 42 million US dollars over five years.

CHINA: More than 100 primary school students in south China were taken to hospital after they inhaled gas emitted by an illegal refinery nearby, a local official and state media said Friday. The sulphurous gas escaped at about 9:00 am (0100 GMT) Thursday in Zengcheng city, Guangdong province.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Two Polish miners died and three were injured at an OKD Coal Mine when a tremor hit the Czech coal pit, the company said on Sunday. The tremor hit the coal mine in the northeast of the Czech Republic shortly before midnight on Saturday while 21 miners were working there. "We deeply regret any human life lost and feel sincere sympathy for the families and close relatives of the dead miners," said OKD Chief Executive Officer Klaus-Dieter Beck in a statement.

JORDAN: The Ministry of Agriculture has imposed quarantine on a livestock farm in the Dulayl area in Zarqa, where a case of anthrax was detected. Despite a senior ministry official's assurances that the situation is under control, experts and other officials warned that the procedures taken do not guarantee that the problem has ended.

RUSSIA: A total of 8 people including 4 children have been hospitalized in the infectious hospital of Novokuznetsk with trichinellosis. "All the patients ate bear's meat," informed Alexander Kultzev, the main physician of 8th infectious hospital of Novokuznetsk. The diagnosis "trichinosis" has been confirmed in 7 persons and in 8th patient -- a 2-year-old child -- the diagnosis was not confirmed.

Subject: Around the World Today - Sunday 23rd November

No posting available

Subject: Around the World Today - Saturday 22nd November

ZIMBABWE: Nearly 300 people have died from a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe that is compounded by the country's collapsing health-care system, according to the World Health Organization. The Geneva-based organization said Friday that 294 people have died of the disease and that a total 6,072 cases had been reported between August and this Tuesday. The organization noted a marked increase over the past two weeks.

COLOMBIA: The Nevado del Huila volcano in southwest Colombia has erupted, triggering an avalanche of earth and debris that damaged houses, bridges and crops, the country's Ingeominas geological institute said. Some people fled their homes and civil defence authorities rushed to the area yesterday to evaluate damages and begin cleanup. No injuries were reported. The volcano, in the province of Huila, is not near any major coffee plantations integral to the economy of this part of the Andean country. Nevado del Huila erupted at the start of 2007 after laying dormant for hundreds of years. A 1985 eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Caldas province triggered mudslides killing 25,000 people in Colombia's worst ever natural disaster.

VENEZUELA: Heavy rains unleashed flooding and mudslides in Venezuela that killed at least eight people, including four children, authorities said Friday. The victims following Thursday's downpours included two girls, 9 and 11, who died in a mudslide that hit a poor Caracas neighborhood. They were among at least four killed in the capital, Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami said.

USA: Oregan - A mudslide covered 300 feet of forest road with debris, closing the route for several months or longer. Road 2207 is blocked about three miles north of the French Creek Road intersection. Road 2207 connects French Creek Road with Little North Fork Road (FS 2209).

PHILIPPINES: A tornado capsized a fishing banca carrying 20 people in waters off Homonhon Island in Leyte late Thursday afternoon and two of the passengers remain missing, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) reported yesterday. The fishermen on board MCPI-2 were fishing 15 nautical miles south of Homonhon Island around 4p.m. when they encountered strong winds. The banca was then struck by a tornado, causing the boat to capsize. A certain engineer Florentino Apron reportedly owns the 33.74-ton boat. Reports from the PCG action center showed that 18 of the 20 fishermen were rescued by passing vessel F/B Marissa at 7 a.m. yesterday. PCG Station Tacloban personnel are now conducting a search and rescue operation to look for the two missing persons identified as Ariel Mondido and Eduardo Ritawa.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: A strong magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck off the Solomon Islands on Friday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake struck 75 kilometers (47 miles) northwest of the capital Honiara, at a depth of 115 kilometers. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties and no tsunami warning was issued.

Subject: Around the World Today - Friday 21st November

AUSTRALIA: Queensland - Flash floods killed a woman and forced evacuations as torrential rain drenched Australia's battered city of Brisbane Thursday just days after it was hit by a violent storm, officials said.

USA: Texas - An explosion was reported at an East Texas oil refinery that caught fire Thursday afternoon and left four workers injured, officials said. Two men from the Delek Refining Ltd. refinery were in serious condition with burns at an East Texas hospital and two others were in good condition. All other workers at the refinery, located about 90 miles east of Dallas, were accounted for, said Paula Lovell, spokeswoman for Nashville, Tenn.-based Delek.

RUSSIA: Samara - More residents in the Samara Oblast are contracting "mouse fever" [hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome]. The number of cases has increased 3-fold since last year [2007]. A survey of the rodents that transmit the infection to humans has shown that 28 percent of them are infected. Natalia Trushkina, an epidemiologist, reported that during the 1st 10 months of 2008 there have been 222 hemorrhagic fever cases, compared with a total of 70 in 2007.

PHILIPPINES: Officials in the southern Philippines say a mudslide triggered by days of heavy rain has buried houses, killing at least five people including children and leaving several others missing. Rescuer Johannes Fortaleza says a mother and her two children were among the dead pulled out Friday from the mountainside village of Upper Ulip in Compostela Valley province's Monkayo township.

COLOMBIA: Thousands of people were evacuated Thursday after the Nevado del Huila volcano erupted. Authorities declared a state of red alert and order everyone within the surroundings to immediately leave their homes. Authorities called for the immediate evacuation of La Plata, Paicol, N?taga and Tesalia, but it's uncertain if the population of the surrounding towns and villages cooperate with authorities.

CANADA: Alberta - Suspected meteor impact. The event category was changed from explosion (EX) to cosmic event (CO). A bright light lit up the sky around 5:30 MT Thursday evening in Western Canada, with people reporting sightings in Alberta and Saskatchewan. People telephoned the CBC newsrooms in Edmonton and Calgary to talk about what they saw.

GUYANA: Dengue fever has been diagnosed in 126 residents in the Rupununi area of Guyana's hinterland. The viral disease is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito and manifests itself in fever, rashes, headaches and severe muscle and joint pains. According to the Guyana Chronicle, 171 persons are suffering from fever and 126 of them, mainly in the Lethem and Annai areas, have been diagnosed with dengue. Those affected are between the ages of 14 and 34. The Regional Chairman for region 9, Clarindo Lucas, is working to control dengue in the areas. He has initiated steps to fog periodically and to ensure that there is no stagnant water. He has also launched an educational programme aimed at prevention.

CHINA: More than 100 primary school students in south China were taken to hospital after they inhaled gas emitted by an illegal refinery nearby. The sulphurous gas escaped at about 9am (1200 AEDT) in Zengcheng city, Guangdong province, Tang Jianning, an official dealing with emergency affairs at the city government, said. A village school just several hundred metres away had to send all its pupils for hospital checks after the smell caused a boy to lose consciousness and made many other children sick. Tang said one student was still in hospital. The refinery, which produced lubricants from recycled waste oil, often operated at night to escape government checks. Following the accident, officials have ordered it demolished within three days, it said. Industrial accidents occur frequently in China where factories rely on inexpensive labour and safety rules are routinely flouted in the quest for higher output.

PORTUGAL: Destroyed homes, roads closed and fires are just some of the scenarios that 4,548 people will be facing this weekend during earthquake simulations in Lisbon, Setúbal and Santarém. The Prociv IV/2008 is being carried out to test the Civil Protection’s response time to major catastrophes. This year, from 15h00 Friday, it will be simulating an earthquake of 6.6/6.7 magnitude (Richter scale), similar to the 1909 earthquake in Benavente.

Subject: Around the World Today - Thursday 20th November

MACEDONIA: Macedonians took a day off work on Wednesday to plant six million trees in an action launched back in March to revive forests after fires ravaged an estimated 35,000 hectares of greenery.

ETHIOPIA: Dramatic floods in the eastern Somali region of Ethiopia have killed at least three people and displaced more than 50,000 since the start of the month, aid sources said Wednesday.

USA / PUERTO RICO: The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search Wednesday for roughly 90 migrants feared dead after their makeshift boat apparently sank in an often-stormy stretch of water between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. For four days, rescue crews had used helicopters, a cutter and several aircraft to look for a sign of the wooden boat reported missing in the perilous 80-mile Mona Passage separating the Dominican Republic from this comparatively wealthy U.S. territory. But Coast Guard Capt. Eduardo Pino said the mission was suspended Wednesday evening after rescuers found no debris or bodies in the white-capped waters where the Atlantic collides with the Caribbean Sea. Earlier reports put the number of passengers at 40, but Coast Guard spokesman Ricardo Castrodad said the estimated number of people on the boat had risen to about 90 since the weekend.

GERMANY: Berlin - A large fire broke out at the military section of Berlin's Tegel airport on Thursday, prompting authorities to divert flights elsewhere. A spokesman for Tegel airport said incoming flights were being diverted to Schoenefeld airport in the eastern part of the German capital because large clouds of smoke made landing difficult. Police said the fire, whose cause was not known, posed no immediate danger to life and a large contingent of firemen was fighting it.

RUSSIA: BP's Russian venture, TNK-BP, said on Thursday a minor fire disrupted oil output at its major Samotlor deposit in western Siberia, but the company hoped to resume production before the end of the day. "During the afternoon of November 19 a pipeline ripped apart, causing oil-based liquids to leak through an area covering 200 square metres," TNK-BP spokesman Vladimir Bobylev said. The fire, which was extinguished within two hours, caused no casualties, he said. "Oil production will be resumed by the end of the working day on November 20," Bobylev said. He did not say what share of the deposit's production was affected. Samotlor is TNK-BP's largest deposit in west Siberia, which makes up more than 40 percent of the firm's production. It is expected to produce around 660,000 barrels per day this year, up some 2 percent from last year.

CANADA: Nova Scotia - Hundreds of people spent the night stuck in their vehicles in Nova Scotia's Cobequid Pass as a severe snowstorm hit the province dumping as much at 15 centimetres over higher elevations. At one point RCMP estimate as many as 1,500 cars were backed up along a three kilometre stretch of the four lane divided highway. Nova Scotia officials shut down the toll road between Masstown and Thomson Station at about 4:35 p.m. on Wednesday. Impatient motorists complicated matters by trying to get around stalled or slow moving vehicles further jamming up lanes and making it almost impossible for plows to get through. Eastbound traffic is moving once again but it could be a few hours yet before traffic is flowing along the the westbound lanes.

NORWAY: A 97-metre freighter is sinking in shallow waters about 20 kilometers south of the capital Oslo. All 13 people aboard have been evacuated without injuries after the ship began taking on water. Police say the ship was loaded with 5,000 tons of cement, and had about 115 ton of heavy oil plus fuel aboard. They say oil spill equipment is in place in case of an oil leak.

VIETNAM: Heavy rains from storm Noul in central Vietnam have killed nine people, including three children, bringing the toll since late last week to 21. Several hundred families in Binh Dinh province were forced to flee their homes because of floods while landslides from heavy rains had blocked traffic in mountainous areas in Quang Ngai province.

SOMALIA: At least 8,000 hectares of farmland in southern Somalia's Lower Shabelle region have been destroyed after the Shabelle River burst its banks, displacing thousands of people. The flooding occurred around the town of Kurtunwarey, 140km south of Mogadishu. Some 15 villages, with an estimated population of 4500 families, or 27,000 people, were affected by the flooding.

ETHIOPIA: At least 52,000 people have abandoned their homes in Ethiopia's Somali region after the Wade Shabelle and Genale rivers burst their banks following heavy rains. Crops were destroyed in West Emi woreda of Afder zone. However, there are fears that the continued heavy rains would hamper relief efforts.

Subject: Around the World Today - Wednesday 19th November

AUSTRALIA: Queensland - Residents of Brisbane's hardest-hit suburb have described storms that swept across Queensland's south-east as more terrifying than a cyclone. Weemala Street in The Gap on Brisbane's north is almost unrecognisable this morning. Homes are without roofs, a hot water service sits in the street, corrugated iron is wrapped around power lines and countless trees are down. Seventy-thousand homes are still without power, as the storms cut a path of destruction through Toowoomba, the Gold Coast, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. Some of the worst hit areas were Mount Tamborine and the Brisbane suburbs of The Gap, Arana Hills and Albany Creek. The storms brought destructive winds, large hail and torrential rain, causing flash flooding. At the height of the storm, power was cut to almost 230,000 homes and businesses or 20 per cent of south-east Queensland. The city of Brisbane on Australia's east coast was like a "war zone", Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Tuesday as troops led recovery efforts after a deadly storm.

CANADA: Nova Scotia - Amid powerful gusts of wind and sheets of heavy rain, utility crews worked through the night to restore power throughout the Maritimes as a large storm marched across the region. In Nova Scotia, about 6,000 customers of Nova Scotia Power Inc. were still without electricity by late Sunday. The outages started in the afternoon in the Bridgewater and Kentville areas. And as power was restored in and around those towns, it was knocked out in parts of Truro, Guysborough and parts of Cape Breton. In New Brunswick, more than 500 people were still in the dark -- most of them in the Fredericton area. The power was also off in parts of Shediac, Moncton, Campbellton, Miramichi, St. Stephen and Rothesay. The weather made driving treacherous in Fredericton, where some streets were inundated with water.

INDONESIA: A magnitude-7.5 earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi at 1:02 a.m. local time today, the U.S. Geological Survey said. One person was injured and buildings collapsed. The quake hit 135 kilometers (85 miles) northwest of the city of Gorontalo at a depth of 26 kilometers, the U.S. agency said. Two aftershocks hit the area within 80 minutes, one measuring 5.6 and one 5.5. The quake had the potential to generate a tsunami along coasts within 1,000 kilometers of the epicenter, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said in an e-mailed alert. No tsunami was reported after five hours. Indonesian authorities lifted a tsunami warning they issued after the quake. Several buildings were destroyed in Gorontalo, which is about 1,950 kilometers east-northeast of Jakarta, AFP reported. In Tolitoli, to the west of Gorontalo, said a residents, a buildings had collapsed. An Indonesian official told the news agency he expected there to be casualties.

ZAMBIA: A hailstorm at the weekend left a number of buildings destroyed on Chilubi Island. Chilubi Island acting District Commissioner, Moses Mbewe, said the storm struck around 16:00 hours on Saturday. Mr Mbewe said the storm, which lasted for over 30 minutes, left a number of buildings, both Government and private, destroyed.

ETHIOPIA: A river in Ethiopia's highlands burst its banks after heavy rains, killing 11 people and stranding hundreds more, the state news agency said on Monday. Flooding from the Wabe Shebelle river in southeast Ethiopia has submerged more than 100 villages, said a regional relief boss Eremdan Haji. "Inhabitants in 116 villages in an area covering a 90-km (56-mile) radius have been stranded on hillocks surrounded by the flood water," he said. "Efforts to rescue hundreds of marooned people have become impossible due to the extent of land covered by the flood." Some 6,000 head of livestock and 2,500 hectares of crop were destroyed, the official added, saying the government had sent 18,000 tonnes of food aid to the region near Somalia. Local officials contacted by Reuters said they had no further information but were on their way to the flood area.

USA: Connecticut - Unusually high levels of uranium found in the well water of two schools has forced officials to shut off drinking fountains and provide students with bottled water. School officials said they have been told the contamination is not harmful.

VIETNAM: Five people have been killed in a tropical storm that hit the southern Vietnamese coast, a flood control spokesman said on Tuesday. Storm Noul (meaning Red Sky in Korean), the tenth to hit the country this year, also sunk over 100 boats as it battered the coast on Monday. With winds raging at speeds of up to 80 km p/h (50 mph), the storm caused numerous flash floods and landslides in at least 10 provinces, forcing the evacuation of about 90,000 people from coastal areas. A total of 24 fishing vessels with 216 crew members have still not made contact as the storm weakened to a tropical depression and moved across central regions of the country.

PHILIPPINES: Two people have died and more than 500 others have fallen ill due to a suspected cholera outbreak in at least eight barangays in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental. Tagoloan Mayor Paulino Emano identified the affected barangays as Poblacion, Baluarte, Sugbongcogon, Bogoac, Sta Cruz, Casinglot, Mohon, and Sihayon.

CHINA: Poisonous bees killed three family members and injured one other in Chongqing Municipality yesterday afternoon. The government in Xuexi Town, Wanzhou District, has dispatched special staff to watch the beehive and will ask professionals to destroy it soon, according to a newspaper. Li Ming, the only person to survive the attack, is being treated for bee stings on his arms and head at a hospital in Wanzhou and remains in stable condition, Chongqing Morning Post reported today.

CHINA: The death toll from a subway tunnel collapse in eastern China rose to seven on Monday, with authorities warning 14 other people trapped underground were likely dead, state press said.

NEW ZEALAND: Walnut-sized hailstones have pounded Ashburton causing millions of dollars worth of damage. The hailstorm only lasted five minutes, but it will take lettuce grower Rodger Withell months to recover. While his glass houses are wrecked and his produce has been showered in debris, it is the noise from yesterday's storm that sticks in his mind. 'It just sounded like bullets going off. You couldn't hear. It was just that noisy it was like bullets going off' explains Mr Withell. 'The hailstones were about as big as good 50 cent pieces.'

JAPAN: A fire broke out on Tuesday at a nuclear fuel manufacturing plant in eastern Japan, but it was quickly extinguished and there was no danger of radiation leaking, an official for operator Mitsubishi Nuclear Fuel Co said. The fire at the plant, which had seen another fire in early October, broke out at 11:15 a.m. (0215 GMT) during work to sever a metal filter, the company said in a statement, adding that an investigation into the cause of the incident was under way. There were no injuries, it said.

AUSTRALIA: NSW - New South Wales minister Ian Macdonald talks about the government's preparations to deal with vast swarms of locusts that are gathering across his state. Swarms have been spotted in Condobolin, Wagga, Gundagai and Narrandera - some up to six kilometres long. Locusts feed mainly on green vegetation. New South Wales is approaching its harvesting season, and in some areas, this is the first successful crop after years of drought.

UGANDA: A poisonous bacterial infection known as Botulism has broken out in Uganda, the US-based Centre for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed after tests done on a high school student who died last month. The Ministry of Health said that Sarah Akoo, a senior student at Seeta High School in Mukono district, 20 kilometers east of the capital Kampala, died of Botulism, a disease which last hit the landlocked East African country 30 years ago.

SOMALIA: At least 100 people have died in the past four weeks after an outbreak of acute watery diarrhoea (AWD) in and around the town of Abudwaaq, in Galgadud region of central Somalia, medical sources said on 18 November.

VIETNAM: A ship carrying 1,500 tons of coal sunk on Tuesday evening when traveling through sea areas near Vietnam's central Quang Nam province, with 15 crew members on board missing, said an online news source here on Wednesday. The ship, belonging to a private owner in Vietnam, ran into an accident in the bad weather and then sunk, according to the www.vnexpress.net. The local maritime rescue center has sent rescue ship to look for the missing crew members, but typhoon causing rains and strong waves adds difficulty to the rescue work.

Subject: Around the World Today - Tuesday 18th November

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AROUND THE WORLD TODAY