NPR News 2010-10-31 加文本

NPR News 2010-10-31

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Renita Jablonsky.

Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh today reportedly announced that at least one woman is under arrest for allegedly sending mail bombs found on cargo planes in Dubai and England. Oliver Holmes is in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, where he says security is tighter than usual.

Security is very tense in the capital Sanaa of Yemen. I was speaking to some people around and they were completely shocked that terrorists could operate out of Sanaa. In Yemen, Sanaa, the capital, is the government's stronghold and believed to be free of al-Qaeda members. People think that they're based in the south in two provinces—one called Abyan and one called Shabwah—that are tribally controlled.

Oliver Holmes in Yemen.

The packages found on the two planes were addressed to synagogues in Chicago. UK officials are reporting the bomb found on the US-bound plane outside of London was in fact designed to explode. As Larry Miller reports from London, UK officials say an attack was clearly planned.

After convening a meeting of Cobra, Britain's emergency preparedness committee, Home Secretary Theresa May says the explosives discovered en route from Yemen to the US were viable.

"The target may have been an aircraft and had it detonated the aircraft could have been brought down."

She says there may not have been a specific target.

"We do not believe that the perpetrators of the attack would have known the location of the device, when it was planned to explode."

May says at this stage there's nothing to suggest another attack is imminent. She says she'll be in contact with the US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. For NPR News, I'm Larry Miller in London.

As horrors gather in Washington and other cities for rallies which organizers say are about toning down partisan divisions, several new polls are showing voters to be divided and dissatisfied. NPR's Allison Keyes has more on what they're showing.

An Associated Press-Knowledge Networks Poll finds voters are split right down the middle over whether President Obama deserves a second term. The poll, which has tracked a group of 1,200 people since the beginning of the 2008 presidential campaign, also finds a statistical tie among Democratic voters on whether Mr. Obama should face a challenge for the 2012 presidential nomination. Two other polls including one released yesterday by Fox News finds the president's approval rating hovering between 41 and 45 percent. In both polls, about half of those surveyed disapprove of President Obama's performance, but polling numbers this early often don't predict election results. Both Presidents Clinton and Ronald Reagan had approval ratings two years into their terms similar to Mr. Obama's and both were reelected. Allison Keyes, NPR News, Washington.

Comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert seem to be getting approval today, if numbers on the National Mall in Washington are any indication. That's a sound of John Lennon, part of the musical performances of today's Rally To Restore Sanity. This is NPR.

The US says today it has a national interest in resolving disputes in Asian waters. This comes as China and Japan have been in a standoff that began more than a month ago when a Chinese fishing vessel and two Japanese patrol boats collided near disputed islands. The two countries did make attempts to cool down their differences today, briefly meeting before the start of an Asian regional summit, but the Japanese prime minister said a full bilateral meeting did not materialize.

The Merapi volcano in Indonesia continues to erupt. Now, the nearby city of Yogyakarta is covered with dust. Julia Simon has more from Jakarta.

Residents of Yogyakarta describe this morning's rain as a rain of ash. The white cloud of volcanic dust from the eruptions of the nearby Merapi volcano has now covered the city. Local NGOs and student groups are distributing breathing masks for the dust pollution. Close to the Merapi, tens of thousands of the evacuees are waiting in camps to return to their villages. Many are still lacking water and food and sleeping in tents in schools. On the neighboring island of Sumatra, rescue teams are struggling to distribute aid to the remote Mentawai Islands after a tsunami hit there earlier this week. Thousands of the victims of the tsunami are now homeless. For NPR News, I'm Julia Simon in Jakarta.

Space shuttle Discovery's final launch won't happen now until Wednesday. NASA's delaying the flight to the International Space Station yet another day because more work needs to be done to repair leaking pipe hookups that are near the shuttle's tail.

I'm Renita Jablonsky, NPR News from Washington.