Today's other stories in brief
Nine more Mississippi levees overrun
FORT MADISON- The swollen Mississippi river has run over the top of at least nine more levees as floodwaters continued to swallow up more US farmland yesterday, feeding inflation fears as corn prices soared to a record high.
The US army corps of engineers said a levee broke at 1am near Meyer, Illinois, leaving more than 17,000 acres of prime farmland at risk from the floodwaters.
The rising river also ran over the tops of eight more levees north of St Louis overnight, bringing the total number of compromised levees on the most important US inland waterway to 19 . - (Reuters)
Lithuania open to missile talks
VILNIUS- Lithuania has held no talks on hosting a US missile shield, but would consider the idea if Washington's negotiations with Poland failed and the Americans suggested it.
Polish chief negotiator Witold Waszczykowski said on Tuesday the United
States was already in talks with Lithuania. Diplomats say Washington has become exasperated by Warsaw's tough negotiating stance. - (Reuters)
Child porn raids in Denmark
COPENHAGEN- Danish police arrested a large number of men suspected of downloading and distributing child pornography after a coordinated raid of 42 addresses, police said yesterday.
"They have all been preliminarily charged with distributing child pornography on the internet," police said in a statement.
Danish media reported that about two dozen men had been charged. - (Reuters)
Surge against Taliban troops
ARGHANDAR- Helicopter gunships and troops with small and heavy arms blasted a valley in southern Afghanistan yesterday as local and Nato forces launched a significant offensive against hundreds of Taliban insurgents, many of whom were broken out of jail last week.
Some 600 Taliban fighters on Monday took over villages in Arghandab, on the northern outskirts of
Kandahar city, days after freeing hundreds of inmates in an attack on the city's main jail, according to the Taliban and an Afghan official. - (Reuters)
Davis byelection on July 10th
LONDON- Tory MP David Davis has officially resigned his seat, triggering a byelection in Haltemprice and Howden on July 10th.
The former shadow home secretary insisted yesterday that he had no regrets and challenged Gordon Brown to put up a Labour candidate for the forthcoming contest. - (PA)
British rail station strike next week
LONDON- Station staff will strike at 19 mainline stations in London and across Britain next week in a dispute over compulsory redundancies.
The TSSA and RMT unions say the action by some 330 managers, supervisors and other staff would cause "widespread disruption". - (Reuters)