Noel upgraded to hurricane status
Nassau, Bahamas
A powerful Caribbean storm drenched the Bahamas and Cuba on Thursday while rescue workers in the Dominican Republic headed out in boats and helicopters to reach dozens of communities isolated by floods and mudslides. The death toll rose to 115.
Noel was upgraded to a hurricane Thursday evening after doing most of its damage as a tropical storm and becoming the deadliest tempest of the Atlantic region this year. Hurricane Felix, a devastating Category 5 storm, killed 101 people when it lashed the Caribbean and slammed into the Nicaraguan and Honduran coasts in early September.
N’Djamena, Chad
Reporters, air crew may be freed soon
Chad’s president said Thursday he hopes his country’s judicial system will quickly free journalists and an air crew detained in connection with a French charity that was trying to fly children it claimed were orphans from Darfur to Europe.
Seventeen Europeans have been detained by Chadian authorities over the past week, including six French citizens who were charged with kidnapping. Three of the detained are French journalists. Seven Spaniards, including two pilots, are part of the air crew as well as a Belgian pilot. The journalists and crew are being held without charge.
Earlier on Thursday, humanitarian workers cast new doubt on claims by the charity Zoe’s Ark that it was helping Darfur orphans by trying to fly them to Europe, saying most of the children appear to have at least one living parent.
Gland, Switzerland
European scientists say many fish at risk
More than one in three of Europe’s freshwater fish species faces extinction because ecosystems are being destroyed, the World Conservation Union said Thursday.
Scientists from Switzerland and Germany have found that 200 of the 522 species of European freshwater fish are threatened by the rapid development of agriculture and industry over the past 100 years, the group said.
The union, a network of nations, agencies and some 10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries, said 12 species are already extinct.
Mexico City
26 tons of cocaine aboard ship seized
Mexican authorities said Thursday they had seized 26 tons of cocaine from a ship in the port city of Manzanillo in one of the biggest drug busts on record.
Police and marines discovered the drugs Tuesday in a cargo container aboard the Hong Kong-flagged ship Esmeralda, which sailed from Buenaventura, Colombia, the federal attorney general’s office said.
Authorities initially said they had found at least 12 tons of cocaine on the ship. But a second stash of cocaine was discovered amid the ship’s cargo.
Mexico’s government called it the largest drug seizures in the country’s history. In March, the U.S. Coast Guard seized more than 20 tons of cocaine, worth nearly $300 million, off Panama’s Pacific coast.
Seattle Times news services