Wikinews:Briefs/September 22, 2008
Wikinews News in Brief for September 22, 2008 19:00 UTC
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Transcript
The time is 19:00 UTC, this is the Audio Wikinews Brief for Monday, September 22, 2008. I'm Kevin Fields, and here are this evening's current stories
Almost 13,000 children in China have fallen sick in a wave of sickness caused by baby's milk contaminated with melamine, a banned chemical which can cause kidney stones, irritation, and ulcers. Most of the sickened children are infants two years or younger, and four children have died from the chemical so far. The Chinese Health Ministry has pulled several dairy products off the shelves of Chinese stores. The Ministry is conducting an investigation into why the number of illnesses doubled Saturday. Ten percent of yogurt, milk and ice cream is also contaminated, however adults will not be affected if they drink less than two litres a day of the contaminated products.
Mohammad Ahmed, the 12-year-old son of neuroscientist and MIT graduate Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, was handed over to his aunt Fauzia Siddiqui in Islamabad after years of detention in a US military base in Afghanistan. Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is still currently facing trial charged with attempting to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. Siddiqui and her three children disappeared after leaving her parent's house in Karachi on March 30th, 2003. She was married to a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks. Her husband was captured in 2003 and is now held at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. In 2004, Dr. Aafia was identified by the FBI as an “Al-Qaeda operative and facilitator who posed a clear and present danger to America". Mohammad Ahmed arrived at the Benazir International Airport in Islamabad from Kabul on Saturday in a PIA flight and was taken to his aunt’s residence in Karachi.
A car bomb exploded early Monday near a military academy in the coastal town of Santona, in northern Spain, killing a soldier and wounding several others. The authorities blame the Basque separatist group ETA for the attack. It was the third car bombing in 24 hours believed to have been caused by ETA. The latest blast happened at about 1 a.m. local time, and was preceded by a warning call in the name of ETA. Army officer Brigadier Luis Conde de la Cruz was killed and another soldier severely injured while the police were securing the area. The attacks come at a time of increased turbulence in Basque politics. This week Spanish courts outlawed two Basque nationalist parties, which have hundreds of elected town councilors and regional parliament deputies, and jailed 21 people who work on behalf of ETA prisoners and their relatives.
Finally, today, research has found that approximately two per cent of British pound coins in circulation are counterfeit, since the number of fake £1 coins has doubled in the past five years. This means approximately 30 million of these fake coins are currently in circulation. Despite these large increases, the Royal Mint has claimed that these figures show "a comparatively low incidence of counterfeit coins by international monetary standards." Other people, however, disagree with the mint's assessment. In comparison, the Euro has been estimated as having less than 0.1% counterfeit coins among the circulation of 50c, €1 and €2 coins. It is believed by some that at 2%, the public's confidence in coinage will fall as it did in South Africa and other countries.
Conclusion
This has been an Audio Wikinews Brief and is freely available for copy under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license at http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/. Catch the latest breaking news on Wikinews at Wikinews.org.
