Sorry for going slightly off topic, and I hate to be a nit picker, but have all news organizations stopped proof reading? Note, from the story:

"In a communique released in March, the US embassy in Baghdad said that between 500,000 million and 1.47 million Iraqis living along the Tigris river "probably would not survive".

"500,000 million"? Really? 500,000,000,000 people? 500 Billion? There are only about 7.5 billion on earth. . .