Headlines from around the world: 11-08-10

The U.S. economy is finally showing some improvement, with employers increasing their hiring significantly for October. Initial government reports show that private sector jobs contributed to an increase of 159,000 jobs for the month of October. The Dow Jones industrial average also increased by 9.24%, to 11,444.08.

Haitians are once again feeling the strain of nature’s worst. Hurricane Tomas picked up speed to 80 mph Friday, threatening to further damage the already demolished city of Port-Au-Prince. The hurricane is expected to enter the straits that separate Cuba and Haiti within the next few days. The National Hurricane Center in Miami, FL expects the hurricane to strengthen before it passes over Haiti.

A holocaust-era mass grave has been uncovered in Romania. Dating from 1941 and containing the bodies of over 100 Jews, the grave discovery leads to questions of the involvement of Romania in various war crimes that were committed during the second world war.

The European Union is discussing the possibility of requiring companies like Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. to explicitly ask the user permission before it can use their data. New laws would also mandate that sites give users the power to require sites to delete all previously collected data.

A group of former WikiLeaks employees and officers are starting a new group to assist people in broadcasting leaked documents and information. WikiLeaks is now facing competition, as well as the challenges of operating an organization that is highly frowned upon by the federal government.

Oyster farmers in the Gulf of Mexico fear that consumers will not want to purchase their oysters after the oil spill early this summer. Their fears are not unfounded, because oysters are what is known as “filter feeders”, meaning they sit on the sea floor, suck in the water around them and eat the micro organisms that live in the water. This means that the oysters could be polluted, but the government has assured consumers that they are safe to eat.

Rolls-Royce, the British company that manufactures the engines that power the new Airbus A380, is coming under heavy criticism for the failure of one of it’s engines on the Qantas airlines flight. Rolls-Royce maintains that it was not a manufacturing defect that caused the failure, but rather a a failure to properly inspect the engine before takeoff.

In a day-long battle between Mexican security forces and Mexico’s Gulf Cartel drug ring resulted in the number two man in the cartel being killed. Known as Tony Tormenta, the leader of the gang has been indicted for trafficking tons of marijuana and cocaine.