NPR News 2010-12-24 加文本

NPR News 2010-12-24

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

In Rome, package bombs have exploded today at the embassies of Switzerland and Chile. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports two people were wounded.

The first mail bomb exploded at the Swiss embassy when an employee opened a package. He was seriously wounded in his hands and has been hospitalized. Later, a package exploded at the Chilean embassy, where news agencies report an employee was wounded. There were also reports that a suspect package had been found at the Ukrainian embassy, but an official there said no dangerous items had been found. Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno said investigators were following what he called international leads but gave no further details. There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the incidents which are similar to events in Greece last month. Anarchists were suspected of sending booby-trapped parcels to the offices of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as well as several embassies. Italian police are checking all embassies in Rome. Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Rome.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission says nearly 200 people have been killed in Ivory Coast in political violence over the past week. UN observers say the country's president, Laurent Gbagbo, was defeated, but he's refusing to step down. Betty King is US ambassador to the UN in Geneva.

"Reports of mass human rights violations and abuses, including enforced disappearances, targeted killings, arbitrary detentions and intimidation of those that oppose former President Gbagbo as well as the discovery of possible mass graves must be investigated."

King says the commission is meeting today to discuss the situation in Ivory Coast. Yesterday, the World Bank froze funding to the country.

New reports today from the Labor and Commerce Department show employers are cutting fewer jobs and increasing orders for computers and having machinery. NPR's Scott Newman says that could mean companies are looking toward the future when they will be making and selling goods and hiring more workers.

While economists caution it's too soon to mark any sort of trend, unemployment claims dropped last week for the second time in three weeks, falling to a seasonally adjusted 420,000, according to the Lador Department. That's pretty much in line with...