Bangladesh
Could you imagine the outcry if this happened in waters off North America?
Two ferries sank in Bangladesh yesterday. One held a wedding party of about 90 people. Only 30 were able to make it to shore.
And a ferry carrying 400 people capsized. 100 bodies have been recovered, about 200 are missing.
Tropical storms hit this region of 160 million people this time of year.
In the northern section of the country hundreds of homes have been wiped out.

Ian’s Messy Desk has all the latest information on what is happening with SARS in Canada.
Hong Kong has begun offering text alerts on cell phones to alert people if they are in an area of a building where a SARS case has been discovered.

Nigeria
Nigerias elections were marred by voter intimidation and sporatic acts of violence as southern leader Olusegun Obasanjo appears to have won the presidental election. This election appears to solidify the divide between the muslim north and chrisian and animist south.

Uganda
Peace talks have broken down and violence has broken out as the Lord’s Resistance Army ambushed civilians in the northern section of the country.
The six week cease fire has been a failure.
The LRA has been fighting the government for 16 years, during which time, thousands of children were abducted and and conscripted to fight with the rebels.

Malaria
Scottish biologists have made a major breakthrough in isloating protein that causes the disease to become resistant to new treatments. One million people a year die from one of the four forms of this deadly disease which is spread by mosquitoes in 90 countries. This finding will enable scientists to develop new drugs.

Ambassador Bridge
Police made an odd arrest yesterday at the busiest border crossing in the world.
The bridge between Detroit Michigan and Windsor Ontario carries about 10 million people a year between the US and Canada. Details are pretty sketchy, but involves two men, a small amount of dynamite and a video camera.
Update: The two men have been released.

Blogger
Blogger users are getting a break. A three pronged plan has been unveiled.

Starting today, select users will be able to create a Dano blog. Current BloggerPro users will have Pro features enabled in their Dano blogs.

The next phase, to start in a week to ten days, will allow users to migrate their existing blogs over to Dano.

Finally, in about a month’s time, all blogs will be transitioned to Dano. This includes the blogs, their posts and templates.

John Campea’s list of childrens books that will never be published is a good chuckle. (April 17th)