From NPR News in Washington, I’m Jack Speer.
Russia has stopped military cooperation with NATO in response to NATO’s decision earlier this week to freeze consultations with Russia. The standoff comes because of Russia’s refusal to pull its troops out of Georgia. NPR's Mike Shuster, reports from Brussels.
We heard the Russian news agency quoted the Moscow's ambassador to NATO, Dimitri Rogozin as saying the Russian defense ministry has frozen military cooperation with the alliance. How long this freeze will last and what precisely it will mean is not yet clear. But the action was confirmed by NATO spokeswomen Carmen Romero who said NATO had heard from Russian defense ministry that it had halted military cooperation with the Brussels' based alliance. Earlier this week, NATO took similar action, declaring there will be no business as usual with Russia as long as Russian troops remained in Georgia. NATO and Russia have cooperated in various ways for many years including some joint execises. Perhaps most important this year Russia agreed to let NATO use its territory to transport some supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan. Neither side could say what this would be affected by the mutual freeze. Mike Shuster ,NPR News ,Brussels.
There are continued and mixed reports out of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia today where some observers' report seeing Russian tanks rolling through Georgian countryside towards home even as Russian troops were digging trenches and building fortifications in key areas of Georgia. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said the forces will pull back from Georgia tomorrow. The ceasefire agreement calls for Russian and Georgian forces to both pull back to respective positions held before fighting erupted there two weeks ago.
Torrential rains continue to fall in central Florida as barely moving Tropical Storm Fay torments the state again today, flooding thousands residents out of their homes. From member station WLAN in Miami, F.reportss.
Fay is still spinning just off Florida's northeast coast near the Daytona Beach with tropical storm forces winds. Its motion is nearly stationary meaning it will continue dumping buckets of rain on already waterlogged areas that could see more than two feet of precipitation. Police and national guard troops are busy evacuating residents from flooded areas in hard hit Brevard County. At an EOC briefing this morning, Florida governor Charlie Crist urge residents not to panic. So it ensured to continue to monitor local news for information pertinent to their geographic location. They should stay calm, stay smart and make sure that they stay safe. Although Fay has stalled, forecasters still expected it to come ashore in Florida for a third time a week then cross over the Peninsula drenching the northern part of the state through the weekend. For NPR news, I’m F in Miami.
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and central bankers are gathered this weekend in Jackson Hole , Wyoming, for their annual symposium, the most analysts expecting few details about future possible fed actions. Bernanke is scheduled to speak tomorrow morning at conference.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial Average gained 12 points today closing at 11,430, the NASDQ lost 8 points. This is NPR.
It turns out there may have been something to all that talk about speculators influencing the oil market after all. According to a published report today, a single energy conglomerate, at one point last month, held more than ten percent/ of our futures contracts in the New York Mercantile Exchange. The Washington Post reports that wen the Commodity Futures Trading Commission examining the books of a private Swiss energy conglomerate, they found the firm held 11 percent of all the oil contracts on the Exchange. CFTC says they found more than 80 percent of the oil contrasts are now held by financial firms speculating either for themselves or clients.
Nearly a decade after US health officials declared measles was officially eliminated in the US, cases now are on the rise. NPR Paddy Meehan reports.
Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report 131 new measles cases so far this year. That is already more than three times the number of cases reported for all of last year. In some cases, children were too young to be vaccinated. But in half of the cases children were not vaccinated because / of parents' religious beliefs. Many were home schooled and so not subject to vaccination rules that applied in public schools. 15 patients were hospitalized. No death has been reported before the measles vaccination was available, millions of people got infected every year, thousands were hospitalized and hundreds died. Health officials say they are working to educate parents about safety of the vaccine and the lack of evidence of dangerous side effects. Paddy Meehan NPR news.
Big jump in oil prices today, the near month contract for benchmark Great Crude was up 5 dollars and 62 cents a barrel ended the session at 121 dollars and 18 cents a barrel.
I’m Jack Speer, NPR news in Washington.
[ 本帖最后由 蜗牛牧师 于 2008-8-22 20:52 编辑 ] | 
发表于 2008-8-22 20:42
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