■ United States
Man dies in dog rescue bid
A Pennsylvania man who tried to rescue his dog from a flooded retention basin was sucked into a drainage pipe and died, police said. Thomas Chipley and his wife were walking their golden retriever in a neighborhood park in Telford on Saturday when the dog jumped into the basin fed by two drainage streams, authorities said. The remnants of Tropical Storm Ernesto had brought rain across the state. The dog was drawn into the basin's outflow pipe, and Chipley went into the basin to try to rescue the animal but was also pulled into the pipe, police said.
■ United States
Death penalty possible
An Army investigator has recommended that four soldiers accused of murder in an Iraqi raid face the death penalty. Lieutenant Colonel James Daniel made the recommendation in a report obtained by reporters on Saturday. Daniel found several aggravating factors that warrant a sentence of death in the case of four soldiers accused of killing three men during a May raid. The soldiers have claimed they were ordered to "kill all military age males" during a raid on an island on a canal in northern Salahuddin Province. According to statements from some of the soldiers, they were told the target was an al-Qaeda training camp.
■ Iran
Holocaust `exaggerated'
The scale of the Holocaust has been "greatly exaggerated," Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said yesterday, adding that he had visited several former concentration camps in Eastern Europe. "When I was ambassador I saw several of these camps in [former] East Germany and Poland. In my opinion it has been greatly exaggerated. It is far from what is being publicized," Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. His comments come ahead of a conference to be held on Dec. 11 in Tehran, which the Islamic republic hopes will present "hidden aspects" of the slaughter of Jews under Nazi Germany.
■ Iraq
Prison controlled by Iraqis
The US military has transferred control of Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib jail to Iraqi authorities and the "prison is now empty of any detainees or prisoners," a government spokesman said on Saturday. "The Abu Ghraib prison has been officially handed over yesterday by the coalition forces to the Iraqi forces and the prison is currently under the Iraqi administration," Ali al-Dabaqh told reporters. A US military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Keir-Kevin Curry, said: "Coalition forces transferred operations of Abu Ghraib on Sept. 1 to the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, effectively ending detainee operations." Dabaqh said detainees at the prison had suffered human rights violations "during the former regime and also under the US forces" and that Iraq will decide what to do with the facility in the future.
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