美国有线新闻 CNN SpaceX猎鹰9号火箭爆炸 G20峰会在杭州召开

Two stories out of the U.S. state of Florida lead things off.

First, a setback 1 for SpaceX. It's a private space exploration company that has a contract from NASA, and one of its Falcon 2 IX rockets blew up during a test-firing in Cape 3 Canaveral yesterday. It was an unmanned vehicle. No one was hurt. But the rocket and its payload were destroyed and that included a communication satellite intended to help bring Internet service to the Middle East and parts of Africa and Europe.

SpaceX says an anomaly on the launch pad caused the explosion. The company has had a handful of failures and a string of successes over the years, and NASA says it's still confident in its commercial partners, which include SpaceX.

Next, all eyes on Hermine. That's a storm that was spinning in the Gulf 4 of Mexico last night and headed toward northwest Florida. Hours before it was expected to make landfall, forecasters said Hermine had strengthened to a category one hurricane.

Hermine had dangerous, potentially damaging winds and threatened to push ashore 5, a storm surge, a wall of water of between one and eight feet.

Florida's governor called Hermine life-threatening and put thousands of National Guardsmen on alert to help with rescue and recovery.

Leaders from around the world are making travel plans.

Where? To Hangzhou, China, the country that's currently president of the G20.

What? The G20 stands for Group of 20. It's gearing up for its annual meeting.

Why? To discuss global economic issues and how to cooperate to address them.

When? This year's event will be held Sunday and Monday.

Who? Heads of state from Argentina to Australia, from Europe to the U.S., from South Korea to South Africa. They represent almost 90 percent of the global economy and two-thirds of its population.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: The G20 isn't a group of 20 at all. It's actually 19 countries, plus the European Union and often an assortment 6 of guest countries invited along.

The idea begun in the late '90s, when the Asian financial crisis rocked global markets.

The first G20 was held in Berlin, in 1999, and consisted of finance ministers and central bank heads.

Then, almost a decade later, the world faced a far greater challenge, the subprime crisis triggered a near total financial collapse 7. Fear was palpable. The G20 was turbocharged. Heads of government from member nations were called to action and met at crisis meetings in Washington, London, and Pittsburgh.

IAN BREMMER, PRESIDENT, EURASIA GROUP: For a brief flicker 8 of a moment, the world was experiencing such incredible instability, the worst recession that we've seen since the Great Depression that everyone wanted to at least tell the public that there was a legal of agreement.

QUEST: During the financial crisis, the G20 leadership pledged about a trillion dollars in new stimulus 9. That goal was roughly met. But other proposals went nowhere.

ROBERT KAHN, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: You have to be honest and say that it's a pretty poor grade over the last several years in terms of delivering on these commitments that they've made. It is that countries meeting together, get that practice of working on problems, and so, should we have a major crisis again, that infrastructure 10 will be in place and ready to be utilized 11.