Wikinews:Briefs/June 20, 2009

June 20, 2009

About
The Audio Wikinews - News Brief is a two to five minute audio newscast summary of each day's top stories on Wikinews.

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Intro
From Wikinews, the free news source, this is the Audio Wikinews Brief for Saturday, June 20, 2009. I'm James Pain, and here are today's current stories.

Two British hostages feared dead after bodies found in Iraq
The British government has said it fears that two bodies handed back by the Iraqi authorities are those of two Britons captured in 2007. The foreign secretary, David Miliband said that forensic tests were currently being conducted to determine whether they were them. In May 2007, four security guards and an IT consultant, Peter Moore, were kidnapped at the Ministry of Finance by armed militants from the Islamic Shiite Resistance. Foreign office sources have suggested that the bodies have been dead for several months.

Tropical depression dissipates, impacts Mexico
Tropical Depression One-E, the first tropical system of the 2009 Eastern Pacific hurricane season, was declared dissipated by the National Hurricane Center at 5 pm PDT yesterday, but its remnants continue to impact Mexico. Ahead of the storm, advisories were posted for coastal areas. Shelters were prepared, but because the storm never broke tropical depression status, they were not opened. TD 1-E marked the earliest date in the year that a tropical cyclone had impacted the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Usually, such storms don't strike the area until August.

EPA declares 'emergency' asbestos cleanup in Montana town
For the past ten years, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been overseeing the asbestos clean-up in the small town of Libby, Montana, which has been on the EPA’s Superfund National Priorities List since 2002. On Wednesday, the Obama administration declared Libby and the immediate area a "public health emergency". "Today is the day that after years of work we were able to succeed in getting this [emergency declaration] done," Senator from Montana Max Baucus said, speaking at the EPA press conference. "We will continue to push until Libby has a clean bill of health."

Rafael Nadal withdraws from Wimbledon Championships
Rafael Nadal, the 2008 Men's Singles winner at the Wimbledon Championships, announced today his withdrawal from the 2009 Championships because of a knee injury caused by his tendinitis. The formal announcement came after he had played the second of his warm-up matches.

Outro
This has been a News Brief from Wikinews.org, the free news source, and has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license. Until next time, thank you for listening and good day.