15 Killed in a Car bomb targeting the police in Saddam Hussein’s home town

15 people had been killed in a car bomb that exploded inside the headquarters of police in Tikrit city of Iraq. Police and witnesses say 20 cars were set ablaze after the massive blast and at least harred bodies could be scene in the street. A police lieutenant says the bomber drove a vehicle into a parking lot inside the police building and detonated it. Tikrit, located 80 miles north of the Iraqi capital, is former dictator Saddam Hussein’s hometown.

“It was a suicide car bomb. A man claiming to be police showed up at the entrance and was allowed into the compound. Then he detonated,” a police officer said. “We have 10 dead and 22 wounded,” he said, adding that the blast occurred around 9.30am local time. “Eight cars are in flames and the building is severely damaged.”

Police captain Husam Musseyif said the toll was high as police were going through a shift rotation at the time, and a large part of the force was in the police compound. The Associated Press quoted witnesses as saying that more than a dozen cars were set ablaze and charred bodies could be seen in the street. Police in Tikrit said the bomber drove his car into the parking lot of the police station and then blew it up. (more…)

UN had warn that the Bird flu which outbreak could kill millions

The country Vietnam that was hit by the worst bird flu, has appealed for technical and financial help to fight the virus now endemic in the region. Bui Quang Anh, head of the Agriculture’s Ministry’s Animal Health Department, said that the Vietnam’s first priority was to expand the provincial laboratories on the front line of the war against a disease that has killed 13 people in Vietnam’s latest outbreak.

One project to boost bird flu testing facilities in 20 provinces would require 40 billion dong ($2.5 million), while a new central laboratory to research the virus and produce poultry vaccines would cost $1 million. U.N. experts say countries hit by the H5N1 poultry virus will need hundreds of millions of dollars from donors to sustain a prolonged fight against the disease now endemic in parts of Asia.

Vietnam also needed the expertise of foreign epidemiologists and virologists to help analyze the epidemic contain it and produce vaccines, Anh said. Asian governments urgently needed to boost the hygiene of the region’s largely small-scale farms to help head off the imminent threat of bird flu becoming a global pandemic, United Nations health chiefs said. (more…)

Effort to identify victims of September 11 ends

The Medical Examiner in New York City Said that they are going to stop there efforts to identify victims of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. Forensic specialists say they have no way of identifying remains for 1,161 of the 2,749 victims. They says all means available have been exhausted in the effort to match 9,700 fragments of bone and tissue to the more than 1,100 victims for whom no identification has been found. The last victim was identified on January 12.

It is a sad day for families who had hoped for at least a tiny fragment of their loved ones to bury. Bill Doyle lost his son Joseph, who worked at a stock brokerage firm on one of the highest floors of the World Trade Center. “Although their technology has gotten so much better because of 9/11, and they did make additional identifications, now at the moment they have hit a roadblock,” he said. New York authorities have ended efforts to identify victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, leaving the remains of nearly half the 2,749 people killed in the World Trade Center unidentified, the city’s medical examiner said on Wednesday.

Some 9,720 unidentified bone and tissue fragments have been sealed and stored in case developments in technology allow for identification in the future, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office. Of those killed, 42 percent remain unidentified due to difficulties in getting DNA samples from the remains. (more…)

Fatah lawmakers had approved the Cabinet

On Wednesday Fatah lawmakers accepted a Cabinet which was made mostly of new faces after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, wielding unexpected political clout, called them together and told them not to provoke a crisis.

Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia has been trying all week to install a new Cabinet. Lawmakers objected to his first list because it was stacked with political cronies of the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.

Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie will seek parliamentary approval for a new cabinet, after
Defusing a crisis by meeting lawmakers’ demands to name more reformists and fewer Arafat loyalists. By drawing up a new list of ministers, Qurie avoided being forced out. The new cabinet is considered crucial to efforts too. (more…)