Nation & World Digest

Census: 17,650 species live in darkest sea depths

NEW ORLEANS — The creatures living in the depths of the ocean are as weird and outlandish as the creations in a Dr. Seuss book: tentacled, transparent sea cucumbers, primitive “dumbos” that flap ear-like fins, and tubeworms that feed on oil deposits.

A report released Sunday recorded 17,650 species living below 656 feet, the point where sunlight ceases. The findings were the latest update on a 10-year census of marine life.

“Parts of the deep sea that we assumed were homogenous are actually quite complex,” said Robert S. Carney, an oceanographer at Louisiana State University and a lead researcher on the deep seas.

The researchers have found about 5,600 new species on top of the 230,000 known. They hope to add several thousand more by October 2010, when the census will be done.

Mine-blast toll increases

HEGANG, China — When gas levels suddenly spiked deep in the Xinxing coal mine, Wang Jiguo grabbed two co-workers, and they ran for their lives. Minutes later, there was a huge bang, a torrent of hot air, and the earth shuddered.

Nearly two days later, at least 92 people are reported dead and 16 missing, the official Xinhua news agency said. The deadliest accident in China’s mining industry for two years has highlighted how heavy demand for power-generating coal comes at a high human cost.

Coal is vital for China’s economy, which is targeted to grow by 8 percent his year, and its 1.3 billion people, as it is used to generate about three-quarters of the country’s electricity.

Joblessness will ease in 2010, economists predict

Economists expect the joblessness that has weighed down the nation’s economic recovery will start to slowly abate in 2010, but they predict consumers will continue to keep a tight rein on spending, according to a new survey.

Though signs have pointed to the end of the recession, joblessness remains rampant. The national unemployment rate jumped to 10.2 percent in October, the highest in 26 years. About 9 million people are receiving unemployment benefits.

The November outlook by the National Association for Business Economics, which is set to be released today, shows economists expect net employment losses to bottom out in the first quarter of next year. Employers are seen starting to add to their payrolls after that.

Student protest ends

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Officials at the University of California, Santa Cruz say dozens of protesters who were occupying the university’s main administrative building have ended their protest.

Campus spokesman Jim Burns says the nearly 70 or so protesters who had occupied the university’s Kerr Hall since Thursday in a demonstration over fee hikes walked out of the building around 8 a.m. Sunday.

No arrests were made, but Burns says the students who took part in the protest are facing criminal charges or student judicial sanctions.

Lawyer: Five will plead innocent in 9/11 trial

NEW YORK — The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead innocent so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but “would explain what happened and why they did it.”

The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this month that Ali and four other men accused of murdering nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. will face a civilian federal trial just blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

Leader steps up efforts against Saddam loyalists

BAGHDAD — A stepped-up campaign by Iraq’s prime minister against Saddam Hussein loyalists is alienating Sunni Muslims and stoking tensions between them and the majority Shiites ahead of key national elections.

In its latest anti-Baathist attack, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government put three men on state television Sunday to confess their alleged role in planning suicide attacks in Baghdad last month. The three, all in detention and dressed in orange prison jumpsuits, said the bombings were ordered by Saddam’s Baath Party.

Al-Maliki’s intensified rhetoric worsens one of Iraq’s most dangerous sectarian fault lines — one which the United States has long struggled to calm.

Associated Press