McClatchy-Tribune News Service
MCT International Budget for Sunday, September 5, 2010
Updated at 0000 UTC (8 p.m. U.S. EDT Saturday).
Additional news stories, including full U.S. coverage, appear on the MCT-NEWS-BJT and MCT-NEWSFEATURES-BJT.
TOP STORIES
Nervous Afghans withdraw cash from Kabul Bank despite assurances
AFGHAN-BANKRUN:DPA_
Hundreds of people, mostly government employees, crowded Kabul Bank branches around the Afghan capital and in major provinces on Saturday to withdraw funds or empty their accounts.
The bank handles salary payments for Afghan government civil servants such as teachers, soldiers and police officers throughout the war-torn country, along with personal accounts.
500 in Kabul, Afghanistan. MOVED
Iranian rights activist arrested, husband says
IRAN-ARREST:LA_
Nasrine Sotoudeh is among the small cadre of outspoken lawyers who risk liberty and their careers to defend political dissidents, activists, women and religious and ethnic minorities in Iran.
150 by Borzou Daragahi in Beirut, Lebanon. MOVED
BP well declared to be no longer a threat to gulf
OILSPILL:LA_
''I'm very pleased to announce that with the new blowout preventer on this well, and the cement that was previously put in
that this well does not constitute a threat to the Gulf of Mexico at this point," said Thad Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral who has served as the government's point person on the response.
''But we need to finish the work related to the relief well, and plugging and abandonment, which will need to move forward," he said.
400 by Richard Fausset in New Orleans. MOVED
WORLD NEWS
Migrant massacre in Mexico shakes Central America
SALVADOR-MIGRANTS:LA_
His granddaughter, Yedmi Victoria Castro, had just celebrated her 15th birthday in Las Penitas, a mountain hamlet near El Salvador's border with Honduras. A suitor was becoming aggressive, and the idea arose that she join her mother in New York.
Flores, a wizened corn farmer, said he opposed her making the risky journey without papers. But the girl's mother was decided: Yedmi would go north.
The dark-haired and slender teenager read passages from the Bible to Flores for three days in a row. On Aug. 10, she set out for Guatemala and Mexico, a route traveled by thousands of Salvadorans before her.
Two weeks later she was dead.
Yedmi was among the 72 Central and South American migrants found slain Aug. 24 in northern Mexico's Tamaulipas state, allegedly victims of the notorious Zetas drug gang. Salvadoran officials said 13 of the victims identified so far were from El Salvador.
850 (with trims) by Alex Renderos and Ken Ellingwood in Las Penitas, El Salvador. DIVERSITY. MOVED
Discovering Seoul, one subway stop at a time
SKOREA-SUBWAY:LA_
But for Charles Usher, that idle thought launched an ambitious blog project to describe the intricacies of Seoul one subway stop at a time - all 477 of them. He wanted to pierce the prevailing urban sameness of his adopted hometown, areas dominated by high-rise apartments and chain outlets.
800 by John M. Glionna in Seoul, South Korea. MOVED
PHOTO
U.S. hospital in Germany handles America's Afghan war wounded
USAFGHAN-WOUNDED:LA_
''I was joking with my buddies that it was going to be a bad night," said Griggs, 23, of Portland, Ore.
He was right.
As darkness settled on a recent Saturday over the desert village of Sangin, someone threw a bomb over a mud wall at Griggs and his squad. The blast shattered his right forearm, and sent jagged shrapnel into his left forearm.
After emergency surgery at a military outpost, Griggs was placed aboard a specially outfitted cargo plane airlifting him to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center next to the U.S. air base at Ramstein, Germany.
700 by Tony Perry in Landstuhl, Germany. MOVED
PHOTO
Japanese hospital took months to report drug-resistant infections to authorities
MED-JAPAN-SUPERBUG:YS_
Since August 2009, a number of patients at the hospital have been confirmed to be infected with the superbug Acinetobacter, and in July this year, a member of an investigative panel urged the hospital to inform authorities. However, it did not do so until this month.
600 (with trims) in Tokyo. MOVED
Victims visit site of Germany's Love Parade tragedy
GERMANY-STAMPEDE:DPA_
Six weeks after the incident, a commemorative plaque was mounted to a wall near the site where the crush occurred after panic broke out among festival-goers at an access tunnel.
The bronze sign bore the simple inscription: "Duisburg remembers the victims of the Love Parade - July 24, 2010."
Survivors of the crush were among those who placed candles, cards, photos and other commemorative items in a glass cube, which is to remain at the site for the coming months.
400 by Helge Toben and Helen Maguire in Duisburg, Germany. MOVED
UNITED STATES
After a summer of travel and leisure, first daughters prepare to head back to class
OBAMA-DAUGHTERS:TB_
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
MCT International Budget for Sunday, September 5, 2010
Updated at 0000 UTC (8 p.m. U.S. EDT Saturday).
Additional news stories, including full U.S. coverage, appear on the MCT-NEWS-BJT and MCT-NEWSFEATURES-BJT.
TOP STORIES
Nervous Afghans withdraw cash from Kabul Bank despite assurances
AFGHAN-BANKRUN:DPA_Hundreds of people, mostly government employees, crowded Kabul Bank branches around the Afghan capital and in major provinces on Saturday to withdraw funds or empty their accounts.
The bank handles salary payments for Afghan government civil servants such as teachers, soldiers and police officers throughout the war-torn country, along with personal accounts.
500 in Kabul, Afghanistan. MOVED
Iranian rights activist arrested, husband says
IRAN-ARREST:LA_Nasrine Sotoudeh is among the small cadre of outspoken lawyers who risk liberty and their careers to defend political dissidents, activists, women and religious and ethnic minorities in Iran.
150 by Borzou Daragahi in Beirut, Lebanon. MOVED
BP well declared to be no longer a threat to gulf
OILSPILL:LA_''I'm very pleased to announce that with the new blowout preventer on this well, and the cement that was previously put in
that this well does not constitute a threat to the Gulf of Mexico at this point," said Thad Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral who has served as the government's point person on the response.
''But we need to finish the work related to the relief well, and plugging and abandonment, which will need to move forward," he said.
400 by Richard Fausset in New Orleans. MOVED
WORLD NEWS
Migrant massacre in Mexico shakes Central America
SALVADOR-MIGRANTS:LA_His granddaughter, Yedmi Victoria Castro, had just celebrated her 15th birthday in Las Penitas, a mountain hamlet near El Salvador's border with Honduras. A suitor was becoming aggressive, and the idea arose that she join her mother in New York.
Flores, a wizened corn farmer, said he opposed her making the risky journey without papers. But the girl's mother was decided: Yedmi would go north.
The dark-haired and slender teenager read passages from the Bible to Flores for three days in a row. On Aug. 10, she set out for Guatemala and Mexico, a route traveled by thousands of Salvadorans before her.
Two weeks later she was dead.
Yedmi was among the 72 Central and South American migrants found slain Aug. 24 in northern Mexico's Tamaulipas state, allegedly victims of the notorious Zetas drug gang. Salvadoran officials said 13 of the victims identified so far were from El Salvador.
850 (with trims) by Alex Renderos and Ken Ellingwood in Las Penitas, El Salvador. DIVERSITY. MOVED
Discovering Seoul, one subway stop at a time
SKOREA-SUBWAY:LA_But for Charles Usher, that idle thought launched an ambitious blog project to describe the intricacies of Seoul one subway stop at a time - all 477 of them. He wanted to pierce the prevailing urban sameness of his adopted hometown, areas dominated by high-rise apartments and chain outlets.
800 by John M. Glionna in Seoul, South Korea. MOVED
PHOTO
U.S. hospital in Germany handles America's Afghan war wounded
USAFGHAN-WOUNDED:LA_''I was joking with my buddies that it was going to be a bad night," said Griggs, 23, of Portland, Ore.
He was right.
As darkness settled on a recent Saturday over the desert village of Sangin, someone threw a bomb over a mud wall at Griggs and his squad. The blast shattered his right forearm, and sent jagged shrapnel into his left forearm.
After emergency surgery at a military outpost, Griggs was placed aboard a specially outfitted cargo plane airlifting him to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center next to the U.S. air base at Ramstein, Germany.
700 by Tony Perry in Landstuhl, Germany. MOVED
PHOTO
Japanese hospital took months to report drug-resistant infections to authorities
MED-JAPAN-SUPERBUG:YS_Since August 2009, a number of patients at the hospital have been confirmed to be infected with the superbug Acinetobacter, and in July this year, a member of an investigative panel urged the hospital to inform authorities. However, it did not do so until this month.
600 (with trims) in Tokyo. MOVED
Victims visit site of Germany's Love Parade tragedy
GERMANY-STAMPEDE:DPA_Six weeks after the incident, a commemorative plaque was mounted to a wall near the site where the crush occurred after panic broke out among festival-goers at an access tunnel.
The bronze sign bore the simple inscription: "Duisburg remembers the victims of the Love Parade - July 24, 2010."
Survivors of the crush were among those who placed candles, cards, photos and other commemorative items in a glass cube, which is to remain at the site for the coming months.
400 by Helge Toben and Helen Maguire in Duisburg, Germany. MOVED
UNITED STATES
After a summer of travel and leisure, first daughters prepare to head back to class
OBAMA-DAUGHTERS:TB_Granted, most students' families don't pay the kind of tuition required at Sidwell Friends School - $32,069 for seventh-grader Malia and $31,069 for fourth-grader Sasha. But the Quaker day school commands that kind of money with a reputation for academic excellence.
When Sidwell sends its students away for the summer, it provides them with reading lists. The list for Malia and classmates includes a book called "Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out."
But even Sidwell regards the summer break as a "time for students to relax and enjoy time with family and friends," said Ellis Turner, the associate head of school at Sidwell, who sidestepped questions about the first daughters specifically.
Malia, 12, and Sasha, 9, return to classes Tuesday after a sun-soaked summer of fun spent at the White House and in vacations stretching from Maine to California, with a couple of foreign trips in the mix.
850 (with trims) by Katherine Skiba in Washington. MOVED
PHOTOS
Paul Conrad, Pulitzer Prize-winning L.A. Times political cartoonist, dies at 86
CONRAD-OBIT:LA_Conrad died early Saturday of natural causes, surrounded by his family at his home in Rancho Palos Verdes, a coastal community southwest of Los Angeles, said his son David.
Conrad won three Pulitzer Prizes, a feat matched by only two other cartoonists in the post-World War II era, while both thrilling and infuriating readers for more than 50 years with an unyielding liberal stance, rendered in savage black and white.
3750 (with trims) by James Rainey in Los Angeles. MOVED
PHOTOS
BUSINESS
Jury awards factory worker millions in suit related to 'popcorn lung'
MED-POPCORNLUNG-AWARD:TB_The verdict Aug. 13 was thought to be the largest award in the country to an individual in a lawsuit involving diacetyl, according to the man's attorney, Ken McClain. Attorneys for the supplier, BASF, are appealing.
500 (with trims) by Brian Slodysko and Erika Slife in Chicago. MOVED
FEATURES
New Zealand, the 'Shaky Isles,' dreads 'Big One'
NEWZEALAND-EARTHQUAKE:DPA_Up to 150, however, are large enough to register, and every school child is drilled on how to react to an earthquake - get under your desk or in a doorway when you feel a tremor - and taught the need to prepare for the "Big One."
Although they grow up to be aware of living in one of the world's most quake-prone countries, all do not necessarily heed the lesson by keeping survival packs and emergency supplies in their homes and workplaces.
500 by David Barber in Wellington, New Zealand. MOVED
Battle of the Bulge veterans gather for national conference
BATTLEOFTHEBULGE:CS_He was late because one of his chaplains, Capt. Dale Goetz, 43, of Colorado Springs, Colo., was killed Monday in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan when a bomb struck a convoy he was riding in. He was the first Army chaplain to die in combat since Vietnam, and brought the total number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan to 1,142 since the conflict began nine years ago. In Iraq, 4,400 American soldiers have been killed.
But Carver, in a World War II wreath-laying ceremony at Fort Jackson National Cemetery on Saturday, noted that more than 19,000 Americans died in the Battle of the Bulge in just 40 days - about four times as many as those killed in combat so far in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
About 100 veterans of the World War II battle are attending this year's Battle of the Bulge conference in Columbia, which ends Sunday.
800 (with trims) by Jeff Wilkinson in Columbia, S.C.
COMMENTARY
SPORTS
At 45, Bernard Hopkins to challenge WBC champion from Quebec
BOX-HOPKINS:PD_< Since each competed at a high level well into their 40s in a sport in which most careers are stamped with a much earlier expiration date, North Philadelphia native Bernard "The Executioner" Hopkins has often been compared to the "Old Mongoose," the late Archie Moore.
But those links never seemed more valid than Wednesday, with the announcement that Hopkins (51-5-1, 32 KOs) would challenge the much-younger WBC light-heavyweight champion, Jean Pascal (26-1, 16 KOs), on Dec. 18 in Quebec City, Quebec. Hopkins will turn 46 on Jan. 15. His opponent is 27.
The bout has not been officially made yet, as contracts have yet to be signed. But Hopkins' promoter, Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer, said he and Pascal's promoter, Yvon Michel, had agreed to financial terms and their fighters were eager to share the ring in an interesting matchup of youth vs. experience. Pascal, who was born in Haiti and resides in Laval, Quebec, is "young enough to be Bernard's son," Schaefer noted.
700 by Bernard Fernandez in Philadelphia. MOVED
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5/8 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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