National News

30 rebels killed in Iraqi city In the Shiite city of Diwaniya Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers killed 30 insurgents during overnight combat, a U.S. military spokesman said Sunday. The fighting took place 95 miles from the south of Baghdad and no coalition soldiers were wounded or killed. Japan, China draft position on North Korea nuclear test Sunday, Japan and China agreed a nuclear test in North Korea “cannot be tolerated” and that Pyongyang should unconditionally return to six-party negotiations on its nuclear programs, said the Japanese prime minister. Speaking to reporters at the end of a day of meetings in Beijing, Shinzo Abe said he and China’s President Hu Jintao agreed that a nuclear test orchestrated by North Korea would be unacceptable. “We need to prevent a nuclear North Korea,” Abe said. “We saw eye-to-eye that North Korea’s announcement of a nuclear test cannot be tolerated because it is a great threat to East Asia and the international community.” Earthquake near Samoa generates tsunami A massive earthquake under the Pacific Ocean Floor near Samoa struck Thursday generating a tsunami that registered 6.7 on the Richter scale. Authorities said that the damage could have been destructive had the Tsunami come closer to land. No damage was reported. Wal Mart to offer prescription drugs throughout FL Wal-Mart will be accelerating its $4 generic prescription program statewide in Florida four months earlier than expected, due to customer demand and requests from Florida state officials. The program, which was originally planned to be expanded from the Tampa Florida area to then cover the entire state of Florida, will include 314 generic prescriptions available for up to a 30-day supply at commonly prescribed dosages, up from an earlier number of 291 generic medicines. Russian author and war-critic, assassinated A Russian journalist was shot to death Saturday in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow. Anna Politkovskaya, who had become notorious as a critic of the war in Chechnya, and who had written a critical book on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his campaign in Chechnya, is now being suspected of being killed due to the controversies touched off by her investigative work. Prosecutors have opened a murder investigation into her death.