Thursday, November 26, 2009 LONDON: Around 150 people have been forced to abandon their homes after a huge fire broke out at a building site and engulfed adjoining buidlings in Peckham, south east London. London Fire Brigade said around 150 firefighters were tackling the blaze which is covering an area half the size of a football pitch. Residents from flats in several nearby three to four-storey buildings and a pub were moved out amid fears that the fire on the neighbouring construction site was spreading to their properties. However, the blaze, which was reported just before 4.30am, has since taken hold of the pub and maisonettes on Sumner Road and Rosemary Road. One person has been taken to hospital suffering from the effects of breathing in smoke. Their condition is understood not to be life-threatening. Ambulances are on standby but no other casualties have so far been reported from the blaze.
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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