WASHINGTON — Syria has cleared away all traces of a large building that experts say was bombed by Israeli jets last month because it was suspected of housing a partially finished nuclear reactor, according to a new satellite image that shows only freshly groomed dirt at the site.
The tall, boxlike building visible in aerial photographs before the Sept. 6 bombing raid has been dismantled down to the last brick, the image taken Wednesday shows.
Nuclear-weapons experts who studied the photo sequence said the starkly different images indicate that Syria must have moved quickly to hide what remained after the site was bombed.
One-third of primates called endangered
BANGKOK, THAILAND — Almost a third of all apes, monkeys and other primates are in danger of extinction because of rampant habitat destruction, the commercial sale of their meat and the trade in illegal wildlife, a report released today said.
Of the world’s 394 primate species, 114 are classified as threatened with extinction by the World Conservation Union. The report focuses on the plight of the 25 most endangered primates, including China’s Hainan gibbon, of which only 17 remain.
“You could fit all the surviving members of the 25 species in a single football stadium; that’s how few of them remain on Earth today,” said Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International.
2 kidnapped from Sudan oil fields
KHARTOUM, SUDAN — Darfur rebels launched a brazen attack on Sudan’s oil fields days before peace talks are to be held with the government, kidnapping two foreign workers and giving Chinese and other oil companies a week to leave the country, a commander said Thursday.
It was the latest attempt by the Justice and Equality Movement to broaden the battle beyond the western Darfur region.
Sudanese media said the kidnapped workers were a Canadian and an Iraqi national, but Mohamed Bahr Hamdeen, the head of the rebel group, described them as an Iraqi and Egyptian working for the Schlumberger oil-services company, a U.S.-based firm.
Bidder has lock on Che’s hair
DALLAS — A hair lock snipped from Ernesto “Che” Guevara before his burial in 1967 sold for $100,000 at auction Thursday to a Houston- area bookstore owner who called the Marxist “one of the greatest revolutionaries of the 20th century.” Bill Butler, 61, won the 3-inch tress clipped from Guevara’s mane after placing the only bid, which matched the reserve price. Butler said he was a collector of 1960s items.
4 oil workers still missing
MEXICO CITY — Rescuers were searching stormy Gulf of Mexico seas Thursday for four oil workers still missing after a drilling rig collided with an offshore platform.Two more survivors of Tuesday’s collision have been found, as well as another body, bringing the death toll to 19, Mexico’s state oil company said. Most of the victims drowned after they had abandoned the rig and their rafts were swamped by high seas.
Increase proposed for U.N. budget
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Secretary-General proposed a two-year budget of $4.2 billion Thursday, saying the small increase isn’t much in light of the growing demands on the United Nations to address a range of diplomatic and security challenges. While the proposed budget represents a 5 percent increase over the $3.8 billion budget for the 2006-07, Ban Ki-Moon said it represents only $23 million in real growth, or half a percentage point.
