The other world news stories of the day in brief...
Tainted alcohol kills 80 in Uganda
KAMPALA – Eighty people in southwest Uganda have died after consuming alcohol laced with methanol, a health officer said yesterday.
Some people in the east African country often consume home-made liquor, which is sometimes laced with chemicals for potency, which usually causes death.
Patrick Tusiime, a health officer, said the deaths started three weeks ago but authorities took days to establish the cause.
“Our response was hampered initially because . . . family members refused to tell us that these people had consumed methanol- laced alcohol,” he said. – (Reuters)
Effort under way to contain oil rig spill
The authorities in America are working to contain a potential environmental disaster from an oil spill from a collapsed rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
Coast guard officials in New Orleans said the spill, from the Deepwater Horizon rig, covered an estimated 100sq miles.
The British Petroleum- operated rig burned for nearly two days before sinking on Thursday. Eleven workers remain missing, presumed dead.
Oil officials initially feared up to 1.5 million litres of crude oil a day could be rising from the sea. That would have meant an ecological catastrophe for coastal wetlands with rich habitats for birds and nurseries for fish and shrimps. – (Guardian service)
Flight recorder hunt inconclusive
PARIS – A search to locate the black box recorders from an Air France aircraft that crashed near Brazil last year killing 228 people has proved inconclusive, French officials have said.
Air France flight AF447 between Rio de Janeiro and Paris crashed into the sea on June 1st, 2009, killing everyone on board. The victims’ families hope the flight recorders from the Airbus A330 will be found so as to shed light on the crash.
French transport minister Dominique Bussereau said he would ask the country’s BEA body, the authority in charge of investigating air accidents, to continue its investigation. – (Reuters)
Whaling nations in bid to reach deal
WASHINGTON – Japan, Norway and Iceland may be allowed to kill limited numbers of whales for the first time in 24 years under a proposal criticised by whaling nations and opponents of the hunts.
The three nations established quotas despite an international moratorium in 1986 by claiming the hunts were for scientific purposes.
A compromise plan by leaders of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) would force the trio to cut their quotas for 10 years while the IWC worked out a long-term solution by 2020.
“This is a request to whaling nations to give up whaling,” said Karsten Klepsvik, a top Norwegian foreign ministry official. – (Reuters)