MINDEN, Nev. Pilots brushed off a series of false sightings and scoured Nevada’s high desert Saturday as the massive aerial search for Steve Fossett grew more urgent nearly a week after the adventurer’s disappearance. A Nevada Civil Air Patrol official said the search could continue for weeks. But concerns about the 63-year-old aviator’s ability to survive in the harsh landscape were growing, and there were no solid clues about where his plane might have gone down. The search included 45 airplanes and helicopters 25 under the jurisdiction of the civil air patrol and the rest flown by private pilots operating from a ranch owned by hotel mogul Barron Hilton.
South Carolina: Storm develops
Gabrielle became a tropical storm Saturday as it swirled toward the East Coast, where coastal residents in the Carolinas were preparing for heavy rain. The storm’s center was about 185 miles southeast of Cape Lookout Saturday evening, and it was moving northwest at almost 8 mph and was expected to gradually turn toward the north over the coming 24 hours, the National Hurricane Center said. Its maximum sustained winds had dropped to near 40 mph, though the storm was expected to strengthen. The center of the system was forecast to approach land this afternoon.
Texas: Oil deal with Kurdistan
Texas’ Hunt Oil Co. and Kurdistan’s regional government said Saturday they’ve signed a production-sharing contract for petroleum exploration in northern Iraq, the first such deal since the Kurds passed their own oil and gas law in August. A Hunt subsidiary, Hunt Oil Co. of the Kurdistan Region, will begin geological survey work by the end of 2007 and hopes to drill an exploration well in 2008, the parties said. Revenue will be shared throughout Iraq, consistent with the Iraq constitution and the Kurds’ new petroleum law.
California: Sierra Nevada wildfire
A forest fire in a remote area of the northeast Sierra Nevada spread during the night but light wind moved the flames away from homes Saturday, officials said. Smoke from the blaze continued to cause haze and health warnings hundreds of miles away. The blaze near Greenville had covered 34,100 acres, destroying one unoccupied summer home, a trailer and a small shed since it started Monday, but no injuries have been reported, officials said. It was just 16 percent contained.
Florida: Dodd decries embargo
Democrat Christopher Dodd pledged Saturday in Coral Gables that as president he would end a decades-old trade embargo with Cuba and lift travel restrictions to the communist island. The Connecticut senator also said he would open an embassy in Havana and shut down the 17-year-old TV Marti, a U.S. government-run television station that broadcasts to Cuba. “Other than the war in Iraq, no other American policy is more broadly unpopular internationally,” Dodd said of the United States’ policy toward Cuba.
Portugal: Suspect couple leaving
A British couple named as suspects in the disappearance of their 4-year-old daughter in Portugal are to return home today, a family spokeswoman said. Kate and Gerry McCann, who have strenuously professed their innocence since police declared them formal suspects in their daughter Madeleine’s disappearance, are leaving “with the full knowledge of the Portuguese authorities and police,” a family spokeswoman said.
Afghanistan: Suicide bombers
More than 80 percent of suicide bombers in Afghanistan are recruited and trained in neighboring Pakistan, the United Nations said in a report Sunday that showed attacks running at record levels this year. Most of the suicide bombers carrying out attacks are poor, young and uneducated, and many are Afghan nationals, according to the report, which was based on interviews with failed attackers, other militants and security officials.
Algeria: Attack on coast guard
A car bombing killed 28 coast guard officers in Algeria on Saturday. The suspected al-Qaida-linked attack targeted a symbol of the government as it tries to wipe out an Islamic insurgency. Although there was no claim of responsibility, al-Qaida’s North African affiliate has carried out a spate of recent bombings that have shattered the Algerian government’s efforts to restore calm after a 15-year Islamist insurgency. The bombing appeared timed to kill as many officers as possible, when they were grouped together to raise the flag.
Congo: Gorillas’ protectors flee
Renewed fighting Saturday inside a national park in Congo that is home to endangered mountain gorillas forced rangers to flee for the second time in less than a week, conservationists said. The clashes between fighters loyal to warlord Laurent Nkunda and government soldiers took place in Virunga National Park, where some of the world’s last remaining mountain gorillas live on the slopes of a volcanic mountain range that straddles Congo’s border with Rwanda and Uganda, the international conservation group WildlifeDirect said.
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