Bronwen

National:
News was released that the al Qaeda is planning to strike shopping malls during the Christmas season. The sources said al Qaeda would like to attack sources in Los Angles, California, and Chicago, Illinois, but names of specific malls were not mentioned. Richard Kolko, the FBI spokesman said, "There is no information to state this is a credible threat" , it is intended for police and security personnel, however, everyone is encouraged to be observant.

Threats like this come in all the time. They should be investigated, but people should not allow it to stop them from living their lives. If the al Qaeda bombed a Phoenix mall, I would probably die, but I am still going to shop. It seems the al Qaeda is normally more discreet with bombing stuff.... we just need to get it done in the middle east!

International:
A Chinese made toy called Aqua Dots is contaminated with the date rape drug gamma-hydroxy butyrate. When swallowed or put in a child's mouth the drug may cause the child to vomit or euphoria. The toy has been recalled from stores in America and Australia. Three children in Australia swallowed large amounts of the beads and had to be hospitalized. In the United States a 2 year old boy swallowed several dozen beads and had to be hospitalized.

Why doesn't America have factories like we did during World War 2? Maybe we could avoid foreign countries poisoning our children and make our own toys with higher standards. I would have to say I am a little more afraid of Red China than I am of the al Qaeda right now and I think we should stop dumping money into Chinese industry and have more factories in our own countries.

International:
Up to 8 billion barrels of oil was discovered off of the shore of Brazil. This could make Brazil one of the top ten oil producers in the world at number eight. The reserves will lie somewhere between those of Nigeria and those of Venezuela and is called the Tupi field . Most of what Brazil currently exports is heavy crude oil that later gets mixed with the light oil in refineries. The newly discovered field lies under 7,060 feet of water, 10,000 feet of sand and rock, and another 6,600-foot thick layer of salt. Petrobras reserves may overtake those of Shell and Chevron.

I wish I had shares in Petrobras! It is going to be a difficult project getting the oil out, but it's good more has been discovered. After going into debt to buy oil in the 70's and 80's it is ironic that they would discover so much oil accessible to them. There is still a lot about oil mining that I do not understand- like why we don't mine more in Alaska and how on earth that oil in the ocean could be extracted.

National:
80,000 items at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library are missing according to an audit done last moth. Bad housekeeping habits are being blamed for the missing items. This is one of six presidential libraries that has been examined. Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation urged the National Archives to hurry and fix the problem. Auditors said "the collection contained approximately 100,000 items, yet the library systems only had information to locate and account for approximately 20,000 items. This does not automatically mean the approximately 80,000 remaining items are missing. The vast majority may very well be safely located within the library's storage facilities. ... Some of these items may be missing or stolen, or none of these items may be missing or stolen." The museum has already started replacing software and hiring new employees.

The fact that the library is makings such immediate changes- especially in staff seems incriminate the library. It implies that yes, they do as a matter of fact, know that the articles are missing or stolen. We probably have more control over less important things at Burton Barr. It's not that hard to control what goes in and out of a library, but if there is anything especially important there is a better place to put it.