Morning News Roundup (24 Feb)

• Baghdad is calm and eerily quiet after a daytime curfew was called, though some scattered attacks were reported on Friday afternoon. Sunni leaders reported that over 120 mosques had been attacked on Wednesday and Thursday, often by Shiite militias such as the Mahdi Army. At least 130 people - mostly Sunnis - have died since the shrine attack. [BBC and WaPo]
  
  
• Saudi security forces have foiled an apparent suicide car bomb attack on a major oil production facility in the eastern town of Abqaiq. At least two cars carrying explosives were fired on at the plant. In related news, oil prices went up by almost $2 a barrel. [BBC and NYTimes]
  
  
• Facing unrelenting political and national security concerns, an Arab maritime company offered late last night to delay part of its $6.8 billion deal to take over significant operations at six U.S. ports, after White House aide Karl Rove suggested that President Bush could accept some delay of the deal. [WaPo]
  
  
• President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a state of emergency in the Philippines today as she struggled with a reported coup plot and a possible repeat of the popular revolts that ousted two of her predecessors. [AP via London Independent]
  
  
• Christian mobs stopped their killing and looting in Onitsha, Nigeria, disposing of Muslim bodies by burning them in bonfires. [WaPo]
  

  The recent rioting began Saturday in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, where Muslim mobs attacked Christians and their churches. The violence spread to Bauchi, another northern city, and then to the mostly Christian southern cities of Onitsha and Enugu beginning Tuesday.
  [...]
  As thousands of Muslims struggled to find a way to reach the northern part of the country or huddled for protection at police stations, Christian residents in this southeastern city expressed little remorse for their role in five days of religious violence sparked by anger over the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
  [...]
  Underlying the tension in the southeastern section of the country is a long-standing demand for autonomy. Onitsha is part of the rebellious region that attempted to break away in the Biafran civil war from 1967 to 1970. The situation is worsened by the growing wealth of the country's political elite even as most residents of the areas from which oil is pumped endure worsening poverty.

• The Apple iTunes Music Store sold its billionth song--Coldplay's "Speed of Sound" (what a humdrum purchase). [NYTimes]
  
  
• Here's an odd, odd story: Prosecutors in New York charged the head of a biomedical tissue company and three others with illegally harvesting body parts from corpses and selling the tissues at high profit for transplant operations. It was revealed in December that among bodies that had been illicitly plundered by the ring was that of Alistair Cooke, the long-time broadcaster of the BBC radio programme. [Independent]
  
  
• In a corallary to yesterday's story on the increase of visitors to soup kitchens (noted in the Thursday roundup), the Seattle P-I has an article on the surprising demographics visiting local food banks (hat tip to Pike Place Politics):
  

  The clients at Western Washington food banks, soup kitchens and shelters are a complicated bunch. More than a third spent some time in college, most rent, although 14 percent own their homes, and 34 percent are from families where at least one member works, according to a report released by Food Lifeline, a non-profit that supplies emergency food outlets in the area.
  

  Charity Faith Phillips started visiting food banks two years ago for help with one of the most basic, and expensive, groceries: baby formula.

  Even though her husband earned roughly $40,000 last year as a pressman at Catholic Printery, Phillips still visits food banks twice a week. That's because the couple are getting crushed by high rent, soaring gasoline prices and the generally high cost of living in Seattle, Phillips, 25, said.

  They cannot even find affordable health care for their daughter, Lauren, 8, and son, Mark, 2. Overall, 70 percent of emergency food recipients had some heath care coverage in Western Washington, but 40 percent also reported choosing between food and medicine or care, according to the report.