World News 18-10-2001 US Congress Closed By Anthrax who: Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert what: Sends congressmen home as 34 test positive for anthrax on Capitol Hill where: Congress, Washington DC when: Yesterday snippet: "Two weeks of scattered anthrax scares ballooned into a full-scale alert in Washington on Wednesday," reports The Financial Times, "when the House of Representatives was ordered to be closed until Tuesday." "Senate leaders vowed not to bow to terrorism and to continue with their session," reports Julian Borger in The Guardian. "But that task was made harder as news came that the anthrax had spread, suggesting that it had found its way into ventilation shafts in the building." 34 people on Capitol Hill tested positive for anthrax. Two of them were reported to have caught it, says The Telegraph`s Washington correspondent Toby Harnden. "Although only four people had contracted anthrax before yesterday, with one fatality, politicians struggled to prevent a sense of panic spreading throughout the capital." Some sources described the spores as "weapons-grade", but there is so far absolutely no evidence to connect the outbreak to the 11th September atrocities or to the al-Qaeda terrorist network. However, David Kelly, a senior UN military adviser, tells The Independent that "Russia`s broken-down military industrial complex" is most likely to be the original source and al-Qaeda is known to have "tried to buy ingredients for weapons of mass destruction in Russia in recent years." [... more]

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