The World
By Alex Altman, Harriet Barovick, Gilbert Cruz, Kate Pickert, Tiffany Sharples, M.J. Stephey, Claire Suddath
1 | Iraq Windfall Profits in Iraq? Thanks to soaring oil revenues, Iraq could have a cumulative budget surplus of $79 billion by the end of the year, the Government Accountability Office reported. And yet, of the $67 billion the Iraqi government spent from 2005 to 2007, just 1% went toward infrastructure projects. Senators Carl Levin and John Warner, who requested the report, expressed outrage at Iraq's weak spending record; U.S. taxpayers have spent $48 billion on Iraq reconstruction so far.
[This article contains a complex diagram. Please see hardcopy of magazine.]
Total Revenue of Iraq's Government
Expenditure Surplus
'05 $24 BILLION '06 $32 '07 $40 '08 $74--$86*
*Projected Range
(SOURCE: GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE)
Could the Iraq Surplus Shrink?
o The day after the GAO released its report, Iraq's parliament adopted a $21 billion 2008 supplementary budget.
o Treasury officials say Iraq will owe $50 billion to $80 billion in bilateral foreign debt and $29 billion in war reparations to Kuwait.
o Oil prices are falling, which could reduce Iraq's income.
2 | Washington Prostate-Screening Rethink For men ages 75 and older, the potential harm from being tested and treated for prostate cancer far outweighs the benefit, according to new recommendations from a U.S. government body that sets standards for preventive medicine. The panel concluded that, for elderly patients, treatment is often debilitating and reduces quality of life, while the disease itself might have minimal impact during a patient's lifetime if left alone. It also found that a test widely used to screen for the disease may not be wholly beneficial for younger men either.
3 | Edinburgh Primate Peril A new report found that hunting and habitat destruction have left 48% of the world's 634 primate types vulnerable to extinction. Asian primates are in particular trouble, with 71% of species threatened. But amid the grim data, a bright spot emerged: researchers conducting a separate census said they had discovered 125,000 western lowland gorillas in the Republic of the Congo, significantly boosting a population previously thought to be about 50,000.
[This article contains a complex diagram. Please see hardcopy of magazine.]
o 11% Critically endangered o 22% Endangered o 15% Vulnerable o 6% Near threatened o 30% Least concern o 16% No data
(SOURCES: INTERNATIONAL UNION FOR CONSERVATION OF NATURE; WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY)
4 | Cuba Split Decision in Gitmo Case After a trial at Guantanamo Bay, a military panel found Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, guilty of supporting terrorism. Hamdan was acquitted, however, of conspiring with bin Laden to plan the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
5 | Gaza Palestinian Infighting In the deadliest intra-Palestinian violence in nine months, 11 people were killed in the Gaza Strip on Aug. 2. Eight of them were members of the Hilles clan, a large family of Gazans who found themselves in a three-way crossfire among the Islamist group Hamas, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah and Israel. The Hilles clan was blamed for a late-July bombing that left five Hamas members and one child dead. Hamas retaliated, and in the ensuing violence, more than 180 people--many of them clan members--fled over the border into Israel, where they received brief asylum. They were initially refused entry into the Fatah-controlled West Bank because of Abbas' suspicions about clan members with Hamas ties. After negotiations between Abbas and Israel, however, many were eventually let in.
6 | India A DEADLY TREK One hundred forty-five people, many of them children, were crushed to death on Aug. 3 when thousands of pilgrims at a remote Himalayan temple stampeded down a narrow path after hearing rumors of a landslide. Trapped between a wall and a precipice, they had nowhere to go when those running down the path collided with others on their way up.
7 | Atlanta HIV Rate Revisited The Centers for Disease Control has been undercounting the number of new HIV cases in the U.S. Revised figures put the number of newly infected Americans at 55,000 to 58,500 per year instead of 40,000. The overall rate has been stable since the 1990s but is still alarmingly high among gay men and African Americans.
Estimated new HIV infections in 2006, by race or ethnicity
[This article contains a complex diagram. Please see hardcopy of magazine.]
45% Blacks 35% Whites 17% Hispanics 1% American Indians/Alaska Natives 2% Asians/Pacific Islanders
(SOURCE: CDC, MOST RECENT DATA AVAILABLE)
8 | Pakistan Expedition Takes Dizzying Toll In one of the deadliest episodes in mountaineering history, 11 climbers died on K2, the world's second highest peak. Falling ice severed their ropes, killing several and forcing others to either continue their descent without assistance or wait for rescue in perilous conditions. Both decisions proved fateful. With its 28,250-ft. (8,600 m) summit, steep ascent routes and rough weather, K2 is often considered the world's toughest climb.
9 | Caracas Backdoor Reforms On the final day of an 18-month period during which he was granted special decree powers, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez quietly enacted 26 new laws that--among other things--created local militias and expanded government control over areas ranging from private property to commerce and agriculture. The decrees revive aspects of a constitutional-reform proposal rejected by voters last December, spurring opponents to condemn Chavez for surreptitiously advancing his socialist agenda despite the people's wishes.
10 | China An Extremist Strike Terrorists struck on the eve of the Beijing Olympics when two men in Kashgar, a city in western China's Xinjiang province, killed 16 policemen and wounded 16 more by ramming them with a truck and detonating homemade bombs. Officials said the attackers were Uighurs, an Islamic ethnic minority that has long bristled at China's repressive rule. The attack--perpetrated by extremists whom authorities linked to a group known to pose a threat, in a region long considered a possible target--undermined Chinese assurances that stringent security measures would safeguard the Games.
What They're Cloning in South Korea After her dog Booger died of cancer, Bernann McKinney couldn't imagine life without her precious pooch, so she decided to order a new one. She got five instead. A Seoul lab recently announced it had created five mini-Boogers and said McKinney, who paid $50,000 for the bunch, is the world's first commercial cloning client. The lab posted a message on its website saying its "pet cloning service has begun in earnest. If you are interested in dog cloning, just contact us."