In the News

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, and in most of the rest of Europe it drains into the Danube.

From February to April 2006 many rivers across Europe, especially the Elbe and Danube, swelled due to heavy rain and melting snow and rose to record levels. These are the longest rivers in Central Europe.

In Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania many houses were flooded. Over 300 were reported <ref>High Danube sparks Europe floods, BBC News</ref>. In Romania, the Danube had not reached the level at the height of the flood since 1895.<ref name="bbc1">Balkans battle rising floodwaters, BBC News</ref> Romanian officials ordered the controlled flooding of thousands of hectares of unused agricultural spaces to prevent further damage in cities across Romania. On April 16, 2006, a state of emergency was declared in 10 regions of Serbia.<ref name="bbc1" /> The areas around Serbia's second largest city Novi Sad were particularly vulnerable.<ref>Serbia braced for record floods, BBC News</ref>. A dozen cities were damaged and hundreds of people were evacuated. Near Veliko Gradiste, the Danube reached heights as high as 9.65 meters (over 30ft). Many people left the regions because water could not be purified. In Vidin, Bulgaria, an industrial district was flooded. The high levels of water across the Balkans were due to the poor levee systems in the affected countries. Floods were also reported in the Republic of Macedonia, where several villages were flooded in Macedonia's Pelagonija Valley.

Martyred himself.

Sami Hammad, on April 17, 2006 was a suicide bomber who blew himself up in Tel Aviv, Israel. He was born in the West Bank village of Arakeh near the town of Jenin. The blast killed at least eight people.

Exciting congress in Hanoi.

The 10th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Đại hội đại biểu toàn quốc lần thứ X, 10th National Congress of Delegates) is the tenth party congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the ruling party of Vietnam, occurring between April 18 and April 25, 2006 in Ba Ðình Hall, Hanoi. The party congress occurs once every five years. A total of 1,176 delegates representing 3.1 million party members attended the opening ceremony. This party congress will decide the direction for the party and the nation between 2006 and 2010. It will elect a new Central Committee with an expected 160 members and a Politburo with between 15 and 17 members.

This party congress will also decide whether Nong Duc Manh, Phan Van Khai, and Tran Duc Luong will continue with their current posts. It is notable for having generated considerable interest in Vietnam and occurs during a time when the government of Vietnam is caught in the extensive PMU 18 corruption scandal.

The Shedden Massacre involved the killings of eight men, whose bodies were found in a farmer's field five kilometres north<ref name="LFP">Kemick, April, "Despite their belief the crime was committed by outsiders, area residents are nervous.", London Free Press', April 9, 2006</ref> of the hamlet of Shedden, Ontario on 8 April 2006. Four vehicles, with the bodies inside, were first discovered by a farmer (who police said wasn't a suspect).<ref name="CBC April 8">"8 bodies found on Ontario farm's field", CBC News, April 8, 2006.</ref> Details of who was killed, where they were killed, when they were killed, and whether they were killed in one event, were not released at the time news of the discovery was released. The Ontario Provincial Police said the killings were an isolated event, and there were no fears for the safety of local residents.<ref name="LFP" />

The following day, a police press conference confirmed that all eight victims knew each other, and that all lived in the Toronto area.<ref name="CBC April 9">"Victims in multiple slaying came from Toronto area", CBC News, April 9, 2006.</ref> The road upon which the vehicles were found was a short distance from an exit of Highway 401, the province's busiest freeway. Police refused to speculate as to possible links between the killings and organized crime, even though surrounding Elgin County has a history of biker gang activity. <ref name="CBC April 9" />

My ballot box is full of eels

The schedule of the 2006 Hungarian parliamentary elections, as announced by president László Sólyom will be:

According to the polls, current front-runners are Viktor Orbán's Fidesz - Hungarian Civic Union and current Prime Minister Gyurcsány's Hungarian Socialist Party, the MSZP.

Will be the last ever to bear this name.

Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in American history. It was the eleventh named storm, fifth hurricane, third major hurricane, and second Category 5 hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, and was the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded.

Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005, and crossed southern Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico and becoming, at that time, the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Gulf. The storm weakened considerably before making its second landfall as a Category 3 storm on the morning of August 29 in southeast Louisiana.

Tiktaalik, you are the missing link!

Tiktaalik (IPA pronunciation: [tikta:lik]) is a genus of extinct sarcopterygian (lobe-finned) fishes from the late Devonian with many tetrapod-like features. <ref name=Nature></ref> It lived in the late Devonian period, approximately 375 million years ago. Paleontologists suggest that Tiktaalik was an intermediate form between fish such as Panderichthys, which lived about 385 million years ago, and early tetrapods such as Acanthostega and Ichthyostega that lived about twenty million years later. Its mixture of fish and tetrapod characteristics led its discoverers to characterize Tiktaalik as a "fishapod". <ref>John Noble Wilford, The New York Times, Scientists Call Fish Fossil the Missing Link, Apr. 5, 2006.</ref>

Although Tiktaalik is accepted as a "missing link"—indeed, as a classic transitional form on a par with Archaeopteryx—it still shows pronouncedly fishlike characteristics. Most notably, its limbs lack the fingers and toes that mark true tetrapods. Shubin is planning to revisit Ellesmere Island, the site of the discovery, to search for fossils which more closely capture the time when vertebrates colonized dry land. <ref name="Holmes"></ref>

The new Governor-General of New Zealand. Will replace Dame Silvia Cartwright, apparently.

Judge Anand Satyanand DCNZM, (born 22 July 1944 in Auckland) is a New Zealand lawyer, judge and ombudsman. He will replace Silvia Cartwright as the Governor-General of New Zealand when her term ends on 4 August 2006 and will be the first Governor-General of Asian descent.

He was born and raised in Auckland to an Indo-Fijian family, attending the University of Auckland where he received a Bachelor of Laws in 1970. He worked as a lawyer for the next 12 years, including a time at the Crown Solicitors Office.

Guilty as charged?

Zacarias Moussaoui (Arabic: زكريا موسوي) (born May 30, 1968) is a French citizen of Moroccan descent allegedly involved in the conspiracy that resulted in the September 11, 2001 attacks. He was taken into custody by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on August 16, 2001 after attending a flight school in Eagan, Minnesota where an instructor expressed concerns about the abilities and motivations of his student. After the attacks unfolded, he was described as a possible "20th hijacker", though he maintained that he was uninvolved with that plan up until pleading guilty in April 2005 to charges brought against him. He is the only person in the United States to have been charged in connection with the September 11 attacks.

To withdraw from his re-election campaign - without delay.

Thomas Dale DeLay (born April 8 1947) is a politician from Sugar Land, Texas and a prominent Republican.

A conservative, DeLay was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1984 from Texas's 22nd congressional district. Known as "The Hammer" for his enforcement of party discipline in close votes and his reputation for exacting political retribution on opponents, he was appointed Deputy Minority Whip in 1988 and was elected House Majority Whip in 1994, helping Newt Gingrich lead the Republican Revolution. After the retirement of Dick Armey, he was elected House Majority Leader after the 2002 midterm elections.