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Massive Fire Breaks Out at Residential Building
(DUBAI, United Arab Emirates) — Fire broke out Thursday in a residential building near Dubai’s massive New Year’s Eve fireworks display.

It was not immediately clear what caused the fire, which ran up at least 20 stories of the building near the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper at 828 meters.

Burning debris rained down from the building as firetrucks raced to the scene. It was not immediately clear if anyone was wounded in the blaze.

Dubai planned to wow spectators with three separate firework displays. The show was to begin at the Burj Khalifa, which organizers said was fitted with 400,000 LED lights. They said 1.6 tons of fireworks would be used in the display.

From there, the fireworks were to light up the sky around the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab and later down near the Dubai Marina. Fireworks also will be on display in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the country of seven emirates.
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It was near a huge fireworks display


U.S., South Korea prepare for naval exercises
The USS George Washington. (AP Photo/The Virginian-Pilot, Steve Earley)

SEOUL -- After weeks of feints and indecision, the USS George Washington will finally make an appearance on the Korean peninsula this week.

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, at 97,000 tons one of the biggest ships in the Navy's fleet, will make a port call in Busan, South Korea, on Wednesday to coincide with high-level talks in Seoul between Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and their South Korean counterparts.

The carrier will be joined in Korean ports by three destroyers from its strike group, the USS McCampbell, the USS John S. McCain and the USS Lassen.

The whereabouts and plans of the George Washington have been a subject of intense speculation for weeks as tensions have risen between North and South Korea. In March, the Cheonan, a South Korean warship, sank in a mysterious torpedo attack, killing 46 sailors; a team of international investigators later blamed North Korea for the incident.

U.S. and South Korean officials said in June that they would organize additional joint war-fighting exercises in the region as a show of force to deter North Korea from further attacks. At the time, press reports from Seoul and Washington indicated that the George Washington -- whose home port is Yokosuka, Japan -- and its strike group would join the exercises, though the Pentagon said publicly that no decision had been made.

Complicating matters: vocal opposition from China, which has said the presence of the U.S. carrier in the neighborhood would be a "provocation."

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters traveling with Gates to Seoul that the George Washington would participate in joint exercises with South Korean forces as soon as it departs Busan on Sunday. But he didn't say where, exactly, the ship would go or how long it would participate in the war games.

"It's there as an additional manifestation of our steadfast commitment to the Republic of Korea," Morrell said, referring to the government in Seoul. Overall, he said, the U.S.-South Korean exercises would last for "the next several months" in both the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan.

More details will be released, he said, after Gates meets Tuesday with South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-Young.

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