Huge storm hits Japan
TOKYO, July 10 (UPI) -- Typhoon Chataan, downgraded to a tropical storm but with winds still gusting to 70 mph, dumped 16 inches of rain on Gifu Prefecture near Nagoya, Japan, Wednesday and headed for a dawn Thursday rendezvous with the heavily populated Tokyo area. The Japan Broadcasting Corp. reported the storm toll was one dead, one fisherman missing and at least 12 injured, with serious flooding in Gifu and close to 20,000 urged to evacuate their homes. The typhoon hit the main Japanese island of Honshu Wednesday and was moving north along the east coast, trigging mudslides and pushing rivers close to danger levels.
Albanian says she survived family massacre
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, July 10 (UPI) -- An ethnic Albanian woman testified in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague war crimes tribunal on Wednesday that she was the only survivor from a 1999 massacre of nearly 50 Albanians including her husband and four children by Serbian police and paramilitaries in the Kosovo town of Suva Reka. The tribunal's indictment against the former Yugoslav president, listed 45 persons bearing the surname Berisha, 18 of them children between 1 and 18 years old, among the killed at Suva Reka. They all lived in the same street. The massacre occurred on March 26, two days after NATO launched an air campaign against Yugoslavia over alleged atrocities by Yugoslav security forces against Albanians in Kosovo.
Top Iranian cleric quits in disgust
TEHRAN, Iran, July 10 (UPI) -- Denouncing what he termed a chaotic situation in Iran, a prominent Iranian cleric resigned as Friday prayers leader in the central major city of Isfahan, media reports said Wednesday. In an open letter in Wednesday's reformist newspapers, Ayatollah Jalaluddin Taheri bitterly expressed disgust at the way the country is being run. He said he could not close his eyes to "tangible realities and witness the stifling pain and unbearable suffering of the people." The one-time associate of the late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini listed a battery of accusations against the clerical system, which he helped establish in 1979.
AIDS orphan toll mounting
BARCELONA, Spain, July 10 (UPI) -- The number of children orphaned by AIDS in Asia, Africa and Latin America will be a "shocking" 25 million by the year 2010, researchers said Wednesday at the 14th International AIDS Conference, although other experts predicted as many as 100 million AIDS orphans worldwide in the same timeframe. Both forecasts provided grim images of children struggling to care for younger siblings without an adult's care and others without homes roaming the streets in search of food and clothing or drifting into crime and prostitution. At present, there are more than 13.4 million children in the three regions who have lost one or both parents to AIDS, according to a report jointly issued by two United Nations agencies and the U.S. Agency for International Development. That figure is up from fewer than 4.5 million in 1995.
Bush rallies federal workers
WASHINGTON, July 10 (UPI) -- President Bush Wednesday rallied thousands of federal government employees whose agencies and departments will be rolled into the new Department of Homeland Security, praising their service and their role in protecting their country. About 3,000 federal workers attended the president's speech.
Report: Hijackers gave US banks fake data
WASHINGTON, July 10 (UPI) -- The Sept. 11 hijackers opened 35 bank accounts in the United States using fake Social Security numbers, The New York Times reported Wednesday. The banks did not verify the authenticity of any of the numbers, the Times quoted Dennis Lormel, head of the FBI unit that is investigating how the Sept. 11 plot was financed, as saying. Using these accounts, the hijackers moved hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Middle East to the United States more than a year before the attacks on New York and Washington.
Al Qaida makes more threats
ALGIERS, Algeria, July 10 (UPI) -- Osama bin Laden's al Qaida network has threatened more attacks on the United States. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a spokesman for the group, told Algeria's El Youm newspaper the U.S. war on terrorism is a "Hollywood script" and "al Qaida still maintains its military, security, economic and informational structures." El Youm Editor in Chief H'Mida Ayachi said the interview with the Kuwaiti-born Abu Ghaith was conducted Sunday via two intermediaries. He said the newspaper faxed questions to the first intermediary and a second intermediary asked the questions. No location for the interview was given.
United machinists balk at concessions
CHICAGO, July 10 (UPI) -- The machinists union, which represents more than half of the employees at troubled United Air Lines, has rejected a 10 percent pay cut the carrier said would have helped it return to profitability. The union's decision threatens a concessions plan tentatively accepted by pilots. United, which lost a record $2.1 billion last year, is seeking $950 million in givebacks from all employees and a $1.8 billion federal loan guarantee under the airline industry bailout approved by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks. The nation's second-largest airline remained optimistic it would be able to work out a concessions deal with the machinists, who received their first raise since 1994 earlier this year.
Import prices fall 0.6 percent
WASHINGTON, July 10 (UPI) -- The Labor Department Wednesday reported the price of goods imported into the United States posted its first decline this year, falling 0.6 percent in June as the price of imported petroleum prices sank 6.6 percent. Wall Street economists were expecting the prices of goods imported into the country to decline 0.1 percent during the month after rising 0.1 percent in May and jumping 1.6 percent in April. The decline was the first since a 6.1 percent decline posted back in December.
Stocks continue to slide
NEW YORK, July 10 (UPI) -- Stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market were lower in moderate early afternoon trading Wednesday as investors tried to make sense of earnings news and a reshuffling of the Standard & Poor's 500 index, a broad gauge of the market, to make it U.S.-focused. The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average, which fell 178.81 points Tuesday, was down another 114.99 points to 8,981.10. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index, which fell 24.49 points in the previous session, was down 9.30 points to 1,371.82.
Armstrong gains ground in team time trial
CHATEAU-THIERRY, France, July 10 (UPI) -- Igor Gonzalez Galdeano of Spain grabbed the overall lead in the Tour de France at the end of Wednesday's team time trial while three-time defending champion Lance Armstrong moved into third place, just seven seconds behind. The team time trial, only one of which is contested during the three-week competition, was raced over 67.5 kilometers and Armstrong's U.S. Postal team did just what it had hoped to do. Armstrong's team produced the second-fastest time of the day, ensuring the world's most famous cyclist would not have much time to make up when the tour reaches the mountains next week.
