Wikinews:Audio Wikinews/Transcripts/May 20, 2005

Audio Wikinews transcript – 2005 05 20 – 0600 UTC

As reported by Nicholas Gerda

May 20, 2005. This is Wikinews.

Breaking News

Adrian dissipates, producing heavy rains
Hurricane Adrian appears to be dissipating over Honduras, but is still providing heavy rainfall to the region. At 8 a.m. Pacific Time, the center of what is now Tropical Depression Adrian was dissipating at 15.0° N, 87.5°W and was inland over western Honduras. It is moving toward the northeast at about 17 mph with maximum sustained winds of 30 mph. The Salvadoran National Emergency Committee reported that over 15,400 people were evacuated from high risk areas. Tropical Depression Adrian is expected to produce an additional 4 to 6 inches of rainfall over Honduras over the next 24 hours. The National Hurricane Center has discontinued its public advisories for Adrian unless the storm regenerates.

Headlines

Dec. 2004 Sumatra quake was longest ever recorded
(New information concerning the quake on December 26th, 2004). "Normally, a small earthquake might last less than a second; a moderate sized earthquake might last a few seconds. This earthquake lasted between 500 and 600 seconds (at least 10 minutes)," said Charles Ammon, associate professor of geosciences at Penn State University. However, this quake released an amount of energy equal to a 100 gigaton bomb, according to Roger Bilham, professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado. And that power lasted longer than any quake ever recorded. “No point on Earth remained undisturbed,” said Roger Bilham of the University of Colorado. The quake was centered in the Indian Ocean, and it created the biggest gash in the Earth's seabed ever observed. It measured nearly 800 miles, about the distance from northern California to southern Canada. Scientists have upgraded the magnitude of the quake from 9.0 to around 9.1-9.3, which is a dramatically more powerful quake. "Globally, this earthquake was large enough to basically vibrate the whole planet as much as half an inch, or a centimeter. Everywhere we had instruments, we could see motions," Ammon said. "Two hours after the earthquake has occurred, the wave is spreading out from the Bay of Bengal," Lay said. "Two satellites went over, with the capability of measuring the elevation of the ocean surface. It was just good luck that the passage of the satellites caught the tsunami in motion, There will be more earthquakes of this type, and with more humans exposed to the hazard there will be more devastating losses of life. What we hope to do is develop technologies that can minimize that loss.". Findings reported in the various papers: In Sri Lanka, more than 1,600 kilometres from the epicenter, the ground moved nearly 10 centimetres. The rupture spread from south to north. Seismometers in Russia recorded the quake at a higher frequency because it was moving toward them, while those in Australia measured a lower frequency as it moved away. When the surface waves from the Sumatra quake reached Alaska they triggered a swarm of 14 earthquakes in the Mount Wrangell area.

Red Cross reveals it told U.S. officials about Koran disrespect on multiple occasions
The International Committee of the Red Cross rarely discloses publicly the contents of the confidential reports which it gives to governments, however, on Wednesday an ICRC spokesman in Washington revealed that it had documented (and reported to the U.S.A.) credible information concerning disrespect of the Koran by Guantanamo personnel. Simon Schorno, the spokesman for the Red Cross, said their concerns were pointed out multiple times to the Pentagon in their confidential reports to the U.S. ICRC delegates have had access to Guantanamo since 2002 and they compiled enough corroborated and independent reports from detainees to report Koran abuses to Guantanamo commanders and Pentagon officials on numerous occasions, Schorno said. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said that such allegations were made on "rare occasions" and were uncorroborated. Schorno disputed the Pentagon's response: "All information we received were corroborated allegations," he said. "We certainly corroborated mentions of the events by detainees themselves." Schorno said: "Obviously, it is not just one person telling us something happened and we just fire up. We take it very seriously, and very carefully, and document everything in our confidential reports." Some Muslim news agencies are still reacting to last week's Newsweek article alleging that Korans had been thrown into Guantanamo toilets. The Jordanian newspaper Al Dustur reported that some TV stations were broadcasting images of the holy Koran torn up by US forces in one of the mosques in Iraq. Regarding White House reaction to the recent Newsweek article, Reed Brody, special counsel for the New York-based Human Rights Watch said Wednesday: "If the United States is to repair the public relations damage caused by its mistreatment of detainees, it needs to investigate those who ordered or condoned this abuse, not attack those who have tried to report on it."

Realization of AIDS potential "late" says retiring World Bank president
During a tribute at World Bank headquarters to retiring World Bank president James Wolfensohn, he said he was "late" in highlighting the deadly potential of AIDS. "I am disappointed in my failure to convince world leaders to act faster against AIDS," said 71 year-old Wolfensohn. "During the early years of my first five-year mandate, world leaders failed to foresee the implications of AIDS." Wolfensohn hands over his World Bank presidency to Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz later this month.

Wikipedia Current Events

• The Canadian Government wins a motion of non-confidence after a tie vote of 152-152 was broken by the speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, Peter Milliken. This means that the 39th Canadian federal election will likely not occur this spring.
• New Kuwaiti legislation for women's suffrage allows all women aged 21 and older, subject to Islamic law, to vote in elections in Kuwait in 2007.
• The death toll in the Marburg virus outbreak in Angola reaches 311.

Today in History provided by Wikipedia

• 325 - The First Council of Nicaea was formally opened.
• 1498 - Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut, India.
• 1570 - Abraham Ortelius issued the first modern atlas.
• 1862 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law.
• 1927 - By the Treaty of Jedda, the United Kingdom recognized the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud in the Kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd, which later merged to become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Today's fact provided by Wikipedia

The callsign of KFRC in San Francisco, California in the U.S. stood for "Known For Radio Clearness". In fact, when the AM radio station signed on with 50 watts in 1924, it was heard as far away as New Zealand, far exceeding anyone's expectations.

Thank you for joining us for today's segment. Join us again tomorrow for more headlines, news, facts, and anniversaries; and next week will have our very first Special Report.

I'm Nicholas Gerda.

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