Dry weather fans California wildfires

Fires in central and southern California raged Saturday as triple-digit temperatures mixed with dry conditions continued to fuel the flames. A growing blaze known as the Station fire in the Angeles National Forest-La Canada Flintridge area consumed 2,000 acres Saturday, for a rough total of 7,500 acres burned, officials said. “The fire has been very active on all fronts,” U.S

Share

Peacekeeping staff kidnapped in Darfur

Two international staffers supporting the peacekeeping mission in the volatile Sudanese region of Darfur were kidnapped Saturday morning, a spokesman for the peacekeeping force told CNN. The man and the woman, whose identities and nationalities were withheld, worked for UNAMID, a U.N.

Share

Holbrooke: Persian Gulf oil money fuels Taliban insurgencies

America’s top diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan says the deadly Taliban insurgency in those countries relies heavily on funding from the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Such money even outpaces the cash gathered from Afghanistan’s multibillion-dollar exports of opium and heroin, said Richard Holbrooke, the United States’ special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, in an interview Tuesday with CNN.

Share

Hundreds stranded in typhoon-hit Taiwan

Hundreds of people were stranded on Wednesday in villages dotting Taiwan’s mountainous regions after Typhoon Morakot unleashed its fury over the weekend and caused the worst flooding in a half-century. Morakot dumped 83 inches (2.1 meters) of rain on parts of the island, unleashing the worst flooding there in half a century, according to the U.S.

Share

Saudis pull plug on Lebanese TV station after lewd content is aired

Saudi Arabian officials have closed a second office of a Lebanese broadcasting network, this one in Riyadh, after the network aired an interview with a Saudi man who bragged about his sex life, authorities said. Pakistani police registered a case Tuesday against Musharraf over his order to arrest and detain judges in late 2007, the Pakistani High Commission in London said. As a result, “If Musharraf returned to Pakistan, he would face a court who would decide whether he is arrested or released on bail,” a spokeswoman for the High Commission said

Share