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DES MOINES, Iowa - The American Red Cross said on Monday that its Disaster Relief Fund is wiped out and it's being forced to borrow money to help flood victims throughout the Midwest. Jeff Towers, the organization's chief development officer, said the balance for domestic disaster relief efforts is zero. He said the American Red Cross would borrow to keep workers and volunteers in the field helping flood victims. "The Red Cross remains committed to providing the scale of services that people expect of the Red Cross when disaster strikes, and the way that we are doing that right now...

Dow Chemical Co. will raise its prices by up to 20 percent almost immediately to offset the soaring cost of energy, and the CEO of the chemical giant lashed out at Washington on Wednesday for failing to develop a sound energy policy. Dow supplies a broad swath of industries, from agriculture to health care, and any sizable price jump would likely affect almost all of them. The price increases will take effect Sunday and will be based on a product's exposure to rising costs. Dow said it spent $8 billion on energy and hydrocarbon-based feedstock, or raw materials, in 2002...

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft. Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur. Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of...

Taiwan’s two main opposition parties Sept. 13 blocked a controversial $10-billion arms purchase from the United States even though the ruling party has scaled back the cost of the package $19 billion. The bill, proposed by the defense ministry, failed to win approval by the procedure committee of the opposition-controlled parliament, a necessary step before it can be heard in the full house. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of President Chen Shui-bian was furious. “What the Kuomintang and People First Party love to do is to boycott … regardless of Taiwan’s need to defend itself,” the DPP’s parliamentary whip...

CHICAGO - Being overweight is nowhere near as big a killer as the government thought, ranking No. 7 instead of No. 2 among the nation's leading preventable causes of death, according to a startling new calculation from the CDC. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Tuesday that packing on too many pounds accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the United States. As recently as January, the CDC came up with an estimate 14 times higher: 365,000 deaths. The new analysis found that obesity — being extremely overweight — is indisputably lethal. But like several recent smaller studies,...

LONDON (Reuters) - A cleaner at London's Tate Britain modern art gallery threw out a bag of garbage that was part of an artwork because it was thought to be trash, British newspapers reported Friday. The transparent bag of garbage -- full of newspaper, cardboard and other bits of paper -- formed part of a work by German-born artist Gustav Metzger called "Recreation Of First Public Demonstration Of Auto-Destructive Art." It was on display next to a sheet of nylon that had been spattered with acid, and a metal sculpture on a table when a cleaner tossed it out with...

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan Premier Yu Shyi-kun accused arch-foe China of sending surveillance ships into Taiwan and Japanese waters to prepare for a possible confrontation with the United States, newspapers said on Monday. The comments by Yu, who was in New York over the weekend, come at a time of simmering tensions between China and Taiwan, with the Taiwan Strait seen by some security analysts as the most dangerous flashpoint in Asia. "Communist Chinese forces are coming to the Pacific Ocean for a confrontation with the United States. This causes a threat to security in the Asia Pacific," the China...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore will not support Taiwan if China attacks the island in retaliation for any push for independence, Singapore's new Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Sunday, as tensions simmer on the Taiwan strait. Lee, embroiled in a spat with China over his visit to Taiwan last month, said he was "very worried by the growth of Taiwanese independent forces" and that there was "a real risk of miscalculation and mishap" on the Taiwan strait. "If a war breaks out across the straits, we will be forced to choose between the two sides," Lee said in his...

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan could withstand an attack from China for two weeks, military sources told the China Times, in comments seen aimed at assuaging fears raised by a computer simulation showing that Taipei could be captured in six days. Tensions have been running high in the Taiwan Strait as China prepares for a possible military showdown, convinced Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian will push for formal statehood during his second term. Both sides are holding their annual war games, with China -- which views the island as a renegade province -- staging mock-invasion drills and Taiwan pretending to fend off...

When National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice stopped in Beijing on her recent trip to Northeast Asia, she heard blunt comments from Jiang Zemin about Taiwan. Less than a week later, the PRC embassy in Washington held an unusual press conference to issue a statement sharply critical of the Bush administration's conduct -- especially its policy of selling sophisticated arms to Taiwan. The substance of such comments was not new, but the tone was unusually firm and uncompromising. Moreover, those statements are simply the latest in a series of developments that suggest that Beijing's patience on the Taiwan issue is wearing...

SEOUL, (AFP) - South Korea's top military intelligence chief says North Korea is operating an elite military unit specializing in hacking into South Korean computer networks. Song Young-Keun, commanding general of the counter-intelligence Defense Security Command, said at a conference here that North Korea was building up its "cyber-terror" capability on orders from its leader, Kim Jong-Il. "Following orders from Chairman Kim Jong-Il, North Korea has been operating a crack unit specializing in computer hacking and strengthening its cyber-terror ability," he said in a keynote speech. The conference was organized by the Korea Information Security Agency affiliated with the information...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Five U.S. Marines died in an ambush on the Syrian border, triggering a battle with hundreds of guerrillas and pushing the number Americans killed in combat this month to 99. Reports of the battle — in an area that had seen little fighting previously — came as Spain's prime minister ordered Spanish troops withdrawn from Iraq (news - web sites) as soon as possible. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had run for office on a promise to withdraw the forces, but the timing of the announcement was unexpected. At least 25 Iraqis were killed in the...

In case you guys haven't heard, TheOneRing.net put up some footage from ROTK (I believe it was originally shown at ComicCon in San Diego, it is about 1:30 long), but New Line made them take it down. As I am posting this, the footage is available at empiremovies.com at the link above, just click on the trailer and you can watch it streaming or download it. This site will probably be forced to take it down also soon, so you should get it while you can. It is not perfectly lip-synched, but it is definately ROTK footage, not seen in...

Hello all, I am looking for advise about a gun purchase. I am looking to buy a used rifle of some kind. I live in Texas, if that makes a difference as to the legality of certain guns. I am 19, and cannot buy a handgun in my state, so it has to be a rifle/shotgun. I would rather get a rifle so I could also use it at longer distance at firing ranges, etc. I am interested in advise as to a good make and model, preferably reasonably cheap (I am a college student, so I don't have lots...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Two animal rights activists wearing nothing but a protest banner and underwear shouted anti-fur slogans on Beijing's most bustling shopping street on Wednesday before being pushed into a police van and hauled off. "Compassion is the fashion. Fur is dead!" chanted Kayla Worden and Yvonne Taylor as they strutted into a small plaza in front of a shopping mall and shimmied out of their red silk robes. The two high heel-wearing blondes, covered only with a white banner around their torsos that read "We'd rather go naked than wear fur" in Chinese and English, quickly attracted a...