In Memoriaum
Stephen T. Johns
In Iran Race, Ex-Leader Works to Oust President
By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: June 10, 2009
TEHRAN – In a makeshift campaign war room in north Tehran, two dozen young women clad in head scarves and black chadors are logging election data into desktop computers 24 hours a day, while men rush around them carrying voter surveys and district maps.
This nerve center in the campaign to unseat Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s hard-line president, is not run by any of the three candidates who are challenging him in a hotly contested election on Friday.
Instead, it is part of a bitter behind-the-scenes rivalry that has helped define the campaign, pitting Mr. Ahmadinejad against the man he beat in the last election, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a two-term former president and one of Iran’s richest and most powerful men.
Swine flu ‘pandemic’ announcement imminent
The World Health Organisation prepares to hold an emergency meeting on the current state of swine flu outbreaks across the world
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 June 2009 06.30 BST
The World Health Organisation is gearing up to declare a swine flu pandemic, a move that could trigger both the large-scale production of vaccines and questions about why the step was delayed for weeks as the virus continued to spread.
WHO chief Dr Margaret Chan quizzed eight countries with large swine flu outbreaks yesterday to see if a pandemic, or global epidemic, should be declared. The agency then announced that an emergency meeting with its flu experts would be held at 10am today.
Since swine flu first emerged in Mexico and the United States in April, it has spread to 74 countries around the globe. On Wednesday, WHO reported 27,737 cases including 141 deaths. Most cases are mild and require no treatment.
The world is in phase 5 of WHO’s pandemic alert scale, meaning a global outbreak is imminent. Moving to phase 6, the highest level, means a pandemic has begun. If that declaration is made, it will push drugmakers to fast-track production of a swine flu vaccine.
USA
At a Monument of Sorrow, A Burst of Deadly Violence
Guard Killed, Suspect Injured Amid Scene Of Fear, Chaos
By Michael E. Ruane, Paul Duggan and Clarence Williams
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 11, 2009
At 12:40 p.m. yesterday a man stepped through the doors of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He took two paces, lowered his rifle at a security guard and, before anyone could react, opened fire in a popular national landmark.
The guard, who did not have time to draw his gun, fell bleeding and fatally wounded to the polished floor. Other guards fired back, cutting down the assailant. Terrified patrons, many of them children, dived for safety. And what moments before had been a bright weekday in June became a tableau of violence.
As described by bystanders and authorities, the attack inside the famed Holocaust museum turned the crowded building and Washington’s nearby tourist-thronged Mall into a scene of fear and chaos, with black-clad SWAT teams, hovering helicopters and racing emergency vehicles.