News Update Place

Updated at : Tuesday, January 08, 2008   JERUSALEM: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Tehran in an interview published on Tuesday that it should cease its “provocations” after Iranian vessels confronted US warships in the Gulf.

“Iran should not engage in such provocations,” Rice said in an interview to a
newspaper and website in Israel after Washington said armed Iranian speedboats had threatened three US warships in the Strait of Hormuz.

“That’s what it was and it needs to stop. The US is going to defend its interests. It’s going to defend its allies,” Rice was quoted as saying.

Iran is “the single greatest threat to the kind of Middle East we all want to see,” she added.

The weekend incident, in which the Iranian boats radioed a threat to blow up the US ships, according to US officials, sent tensions rising ahead of the US President George W. Bush’s visit to the region.

“It was provocative, and that kind of provocation is dangerous,” Rice also told the BBC’s Arabic service. “I would sincerely hope that the Iranians would refrain from any such activity.”

The Strait of Hormuz is a crucial energy supply route, with about 20-25 per cent of the world’s crude oil passing through from Gulf oil producers.

The US Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain and US Navy officials say about three dozen US and coalition warships are in the region at any one time. The aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman currently is in the Gulf.

“The United States under this president has sent a very strong signal that America has strong interests in the Gulf, that the United States will continue to defend its interests in the Gulf, and this goes back for decades,” Rice told the BBC.

Updated at : Tuesday, January 08, 2008   VIENNA: The head of the UN atomic watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, is to visit Tehran at the end of this week to try and clear up some of the outstanding issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme, an agency spokeswoman here said.

“The Director-General (ElBaradei) will visit Tehran on January 11 and 12,” said International Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming.

“During the visit (ElBaradei) will meet with a number of high officials. He hopes that the visit will develop ways and means to enhance and accelerate implementation of safeguards in Iran, with a view of resolving all remaining outstanding issues and enabling the agency to provide assurance about Iran’s past and present nuclear activities.”

COLOMBO: A Sri Lankan government minister was killed Tuesday in a powerful roadside bomb attack by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels near the island’s capital and international airport, officials said.

D. M. Dassanayake, the 51-year-old minister for nation building, suffered severe head injuries and died while undergoing surgery, said doctor Lalini Gunasekera at the Ragama hospital here.

Officials said one other person died and nine were wounded in the attack, the second such bombing in the Colombo area since the government abandoned a ceasefire with the ethnic Tamil rebels last week.

Police said a fragmentation mine — a device frequently used by the Tamil Tigers — was detonated as the minister’s convoy passed the town of Ja-Ela, between Colombo and the international airport.

“The minister was on his way to parliament when his white Toyota Land Cruiser vehicle was hit by a Claymore… his vehicle has been badly damaged,” military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said
Updated at : Tuesday, January 08, 2008

MILWAUKEE (AP) -

Highways remained slippery for some holiday travelers Monday in the upper Midwest in the aftermath of a blustery snowstorm that blacked out thousands of homes and businesses and snarled air travel.

At least 18 deaths were linked to the weekend-long blast of ice and windblown snow, which led to multi-car pileups that closed sections of several major highways on the Plains.

Conditions had eased Monday, with sunshine across much of the region, but that didn’t necessarily mean safer roads, authorities cautioned.

Highways in northwestern Wisconsin still had slippery patches Monday, said State Patrol dispatcher Linda Luhman in Spooner.

“We haven’t had anything major, accident-wise. Slide-ins and minor property damage, but no serious injuries or fatalities,” Luhman said.

Early Monday, Sgt. Tim Elve of the Dane County Sheriff’s Office said: “The roads aren’t quite as ice-covered but we’re still telling people not to drive unless they have to. The interstate is still slick and the rural roads are really bad.”

Authorities had issued urgent pleas for travelers to stay home Sunday but officials worried that people would insist on driving Monday, regardless of the weather, to get to Christmas Eve destinations.

“I know it’s the holidays but we hope people use some common sense when traveling,” said Sgt. Chad Breuer of the Grant County Sheriff’s Department in southwest Wisconsin. “There are a lot of people saying, ‘I’ll just leave that much earlier’ but still, the roads are not favorable for traveling.”

The storm rolled through Colorado and Wyoming on Friday, then spread snow and ice on Saturday from the Texas Panhandle to Wisconsin. On Sunday, snow fell across much of Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota and parts of Michigan and Indiana.

Up to 15 inches of snow fell over the weekend on parts of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, which typically gets heavy snow, and freezing drizzle glazed some highways Monday morning in counties along Lake Michigan. The area of Madison, Wis., got three to four hours of freezing rain early Sunday, making driving treacherous.

The storm system had blown out to sea Monday morning, but in its wake wind blowing at 25 mph picked up moisture from Lake Erie to create lake-effect snow in Buffalo, N.Y. Five to 10 inches of snow was possible there and in other parts of western New York by Tuesday morning, the weather service said.

Wind was measured at 88 mph over Lake Michigan, with gusts of 50 to 68 mph across the Chicago region, according to the National Weather Service.

Because of the wind, airlines canceled more than 300 flights Sunday at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, the city Aviation Department said. Municipal officials said the wind had knocked out nearly 170 traffic signals, and there were more than 500 reports of fallen trees and limbs.

More than 11,000 homes and businesses were without power at some point Saturday in Wisconsin because of the freezing rain, ice, gusty wind and heavy snow, utilities said. Michigan utilities reported some 31,000 customers were still without power Monday morning, and in Illinois about 3,900 ComEd customers remained without power Monday, down from a Sunday morning peak of more than 225,000.

Accidents on highways slippery with snow and ice killed at least seven people in Minnesota, three in Indiana, three in Wyoming, three in Wisconsin and one each in Texas and Kansas.

Reuters - Nintendo Co Ltd’s (7974.OS) Wii
held on to its spot as the No. 1 video game console in the
United States in November, selling 981,000 units, industry data
showed on Thursday.

Investor’s Business Daily - Slot machines are evolving to suit a new generation of gamblers. The new machines, targeted at gamblers under the age of 40 who grew up playing video games, require greater hand-eye coordination, with some models featuring joysticks in the works. Slot makers say younger gamblers also like clusters of machines linked together to allow for communal games. One manufacturer has teamed up with video game maker Atari to create a Pong-style machine and other skill-based slots.

AP - A book of fairy tales created, handwritten and illustrated by J.K. Rowling sold for nearly $4 million at auction Thursday.

AP - The world’s No. 2 microprocessor maker, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said it won’t return to profitability until the second half of next year and delayed the full release of the product it says will enable its recovery.