NPR 2008-03-08

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Giles Snyder.

 Security is tighter than usual in Jerusalem today as huge crowds gather for the funerals of eight students killed yesterday by a suspected Palestinian gunman. Nearly a dozen others were injured when the gunman opened fire inside the library of a Jewish religious school yesterday. Last night, the UN Security Council failed to approve a US-drafted condemnation 2 of the attack as terrorism. Linda Fasulo reports from New York.

 The statement would have required unanimous Council support to be adopted, and after the council session, US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters that the Libyan delegation 3 with the support from one or two others did not want to condemn 1 the Jerusalem attack by itself but wanted to include language condemning 4 recent Israeli incursions into Gaza, which Khalilzad rejected. He noted 5 that the killing 6 of students in the school was different from the unintentional killing of civilians 7. Meanwhile, Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin called the Jerusalem attack a clear-cut individual act of terrorism. Earlier UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned 8 what he called, a savage 9 attack and the deliberate killing of civilians. For NPR News, I'm Linda Fasulo in New York.

 And in Iraq, funerals have begun for the victims of yesterday's twin bombings in central Baghdad. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, but the US military is blaming Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Iraqi police say the death toll 10 has climbed to 68.

 Renewed fears of a sagging 11 US economy and its effects on international trade have sent Asian markets plunging 12 today. Benchmark indexes in Japan and Hong Kong have fallen almost 3%. Markets in Australia, India and South Korea were down by 2% or more. The widening subprime mortgage crisis continued to wreak 13 havoc 14 on Wall Street yesterday with the Dow dropping 214 points. Steven Beckner of Market News International reports.

 As a sense of fear seeped 15 through markets, New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner said the Fed must be pro-active against a financial crisis which he said could have an outsized adverse 16 impact on the economy. In a strong hint of coming interest rate cuts, the vice 17 chairman of the Fed's rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee said the Fed may have to keep rates low for some time if financial turmoil 18 keeps hurting economic activity. Similarly worried comments have come from other Fed officials. Cleveland Fed President Sandra Pianalto called the economy highly vulnerable to a significant credit crunch 19, and said the Fed must act in an aggressive and timely manner. Boston Fed chief Eric Rosengren warned of the significant cost of delay in dealing 20 with the subprime fallout. For NPR News, I'm Steven Beckner.

 Oil prices are down slightly today, but oil is trading just bellow 21 106 dollars a barrel after jumping to a trading record yesterday.

 This is NPR News.

 Wyoming Democrats 22 will hold their presidential caucuses 23 tomorrow and for the first time in recent memory the state's minority party is buzzing with presidential politics. Wyoming Public Radio's Peter O'Dowd reports.

 Former President Bill Clinton was the first big name to visit Wyoming in the days leading up to Saturday's caucuses. Twelve hundred onlookers 24 crowded into a University of Wyoming arena 25 to hear the president campaign for Hillary Clinton. This type of presidential attention is rare in Wyoming. But resident Jenny Stayes says the state deserves it. "We are a small state, but we are a sensible state, we are a hardworking state, we are the energy breadbasket of the nation, somebody ought to be paying attention to us."

 Twelve delegates are at stake in Wyoming which is the least populous 26 state in the country. Senators Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be here Friday, fighting for their support. For NPR News, I'm Peter O'Dowd in Laramie.

 Republican Ron Paul’s bid for the White House may be coming to an end. On a video on his website, the Texas Congressman 27 does not say he is quitting, but he acknowledges that victory in the conventional sense is not available to him in the Republican race.

 China is defending its policy on Sudan's troubled Darfur region where fighting between rebels and government troops and allied 28 militia 29 has killed at least 200,000 people and displaced more than 2 million others over the past five years. Critics are seeking to link the troubled region to the summer's Beijing Olympics, but China's special envoy 30 to Sudan says that is not reasonable. Just back from a trip to Khartoum, he is urging Sudan to do more to stop the fighting and speed the arrival of more peacekeepers. China has faced criticism that it has not used its influence to press for an end to the violence in Darfur.

 I'm Giles Snyder. You are listening to NPR News from Washington.