Sunday, November 25, 2012
3 hurt as fire breaks out at State Dept.
washington
Authorities say three maintenance workers were seriously injured after a fire broke out at the State Department headquarters in Washington.
D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman Lon Walls said the fire broke out at around 11 a.m. Saturday in the ductwork on the 7th floor. Workers were able to put out the fire before firefighters arrived, but three people suffered burns.
Walls said one person suffered life-threatening injuries and two others had serious but nonlife-threatening injuries.
Pope elevates 6 new cardinals
vatican city
Pope Benedict XVI responded to criticism that the club of churchmen who will choose his successor is too Eurocentric, elevating six new cardinals from Colombia, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, the Philippines and the U.S. during a formal ceremony Saturday.
Among the six new cardinals is Archbishop James Harvey, the American prefect of the papal household. As prefect, Harvey was the direct superior of the pope’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, who is serving an 18-month prison sentence in a Vatican jail for stealing the pope’s private papers and leaking them to a reporter in the greatest Vatican security breach in modern times.
At least 8 die in fire at Bangladesh factory
dhaka, bangladesh
Television stations are reporting that a fire at a multistory garment factory on the outskirts of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, has killed at least eight people and injured scores more.
Television stations Boishakhi and ATN News reported that the fire broke out late Saturday in the factory in the Ashulia industrial district, just outside Dhaka.
Fire Department Control Room Official Mohammad Ali would not confirm any casualty figures, but says firefighters are trying to douse the flames racing through the factory operated by Tajnin Fashion. He would not provide any further details.
10,000 march against Irish budget
dublin
About 10,000 socialist protesters marched Saturday through Dublin in opposition to government plans to unveil Ireland’s sixth- straight austerity budget.
The capital’s major boulevard, O’Connell Street, was filled in both directions with marchers, some donning ghostly white masks and Santa hats.
The demonstrators were from a wide range of anti-tax campaigns, labor unions and community groups, most of them with a hard-left bent. Many bore banners denouncing government leaders and vowing not to pay new and future tax increases.
World eyes US for climate leadership
doha, qatar
During a year with a monster storm and scorching heat waves, Americans have experienced the kind of freakish weather that many scientists say will occur more often on a warming planet.
And as a re-elected president talks about global warming again, climate activists are cautiously optimistic that the U.S. will be more than a disinterested bystander when the U.N. climate talks resume Monday with a two-week conference in Qatar.
The climate officials and environment ministers meeting in the Qatari capital of Doha will focus on side issues, such as extending the Kyoto protocol — an expiring emissions pact with a dwindling number of members — and ramping up climate financing for poor nations.
Associated Press