Saturday, November 21, 2009 SYDNEY: "Catastrophic" alerts have been issued in Australia after record-breaking temperatures and wild lightning storms sparked more than 100 fires across the country, officials said Saturday.The unseasonably hot and dry weather combined with strong winds have led to blazes breaking out in the country's south eastern states. In New South Wales (NSW) a total fire ban preventing people from doing such things as burning rubbish or having barbecues -- was issued, while the Blue Mountains National Park was closed Saturday. And in Tasmania, Australia's southernmost island state, three homes were razed Friday at Dolphin Sands, a beachside town. More than 60 fresh blazes were sparked by the lightning storms, which mostly hit New South Wales, while the states of Victoria South Australia were also affected.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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