The World on Saturday

Pakistan - hundreds die in India and Pakistan following a 7.6 (Richter scale) earthquake, this follows last week's jolt in Peru and an underwater quake off the Pacific coast of Central America. The aftershocks still going on. At least 18,000 are expected to have died.

USA

• Delphi the largest auto parts maker in the USA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for itself and 38 U.S. units. Wow what is wrong with US car makers ?
• the Yankees lost ! Shocker, they lost at home to LA Angels and are down 2-1. Today's game has been postponed on account of rain.

Russia - A satellite, launched by the European Space Agency on a converted ballistic missile blew up in flight. The satellite was going to be used to collect data on polar ice.

Guatemala - damages caused by rising flood waters following Hurricane Stan include mayor landslides and loss of life. Authorities expect over 1,000 may have perished.

Brazil - water levels in the Amazon region have fallen to a 30-year low, creating difficulties for river transport - in many cases the only way of moving people and goods. Experts are blaming climate cycles, not global warming, for the drought, which has also led to enormous fires.

Hurricane Stan

Hurricane Stan kills 125 in Central America. Mudslides, flooding and 4 days of torrential rains pounded local mountain villages and urban shanty towns across poor areas in Mexico, Nicaragua and Honduras. The death toll nearly doubled yesterday when rivers burst their banks in southern Mexico and emergency teams found another 42 people buried under several feet of mud in remote Guatemalan towns. Fifty people have now been killed in both El Salvador and Guatemala, including the latest deaths, and another 25 total in Mexico, Nicaragua and Honduras.

Annular Solar Eclipse of 2005 October 03

On the other side of the world and not seen since 1764 (there have been other similar eclipses in other parts of the world) residents in Madrid, Spain got to see something very special, an annular solar eclipse. This must have been awesome !

An annular eclipse happens when the Moon appears too small to completely cover the Sun and as a result, the Moon is surrounded by a bright ring or annulus formed by the uneclipsed outer perimeter of the Sun's disk.

Fly me to the Moon......