War IN BRIEF : SAUDI ARABIA : Wind Stops Flow of Giant Oil Slick

A southeasterly wind has briefly halted a giant oil slick from moving toward vital water and industrial plants on the Saudi coast, said David Olsen, consultant to the kingdom’s Meteorology and Environmental Protection Administration. But he said that the leading edge of the slick had already smothered marine life and that thousands of birds along hundreds of miles of coast have died. The island of Abu Ali is blocking the oil like a natural boom at Jubayl, site of a huge desalination plant and a 250,000 barrel-per-day refinery.