■UNITED KINGDOM
No-fly zone for Belfast
The National Air Traffic Service said flights to and from Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland would be halted for several hours yesterday because of an ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano. The announcement marked an extension of a previous no-fly decree issued on Saturday night that excluded Belfast. Officials have warned the lastest ash cloud could interrupt flights through Tuesday. Ash from the volcano caused widespread disruption across Europe last month. Since then the ash has periodically forced the short-term closure of parts of airspace in some European countries.
■ALGERIA
Three militants killed
Security forces killed three suspected Islamic militants and captured another during an operation in a forest in the east of the country, police said on Saturday. Security officials surprised the suspects as they emerged from their shelters on Friday, police in the town of El Ancer said. The captured suspect, who was injured in the operation, tried to flee. During a search of the suspects’ belongings, officials found two Kalashnikovs and an automatic pistol. Police believe the men belonged to a branch of a militant group known as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which is active in the North African country.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Evacuation delays travel
Thousands of passengers traveling through the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France suffered heavy delays on Saturday after the tunnel was temporarily closed. Eurostar passenger trains and the Eurotunnel car and freight train services were delayed by up to four hours after a carbon dioxide detector was activated in the tunnel and a train carrying trucks had to be evacuated. Eurotunnel, which operates a drive-on train service for cars and trucks, said the train which caused the problem was being examined.
Hundreds of thousands of passengers were caught up in the ensuing disruption which lasted for days in the busy pre-Christmas period. The Channel Tunnel has two rail tunnels — with crossover points between them allowing trains to switch from one to the other — and a service tunnel in the middle.
■EGYPT
Sudanese killed at border
Security and health officials say border guards fatally shot a Sudanese migrant from Darfur trying to cross illegally into Israel yesterday. The guards fired warning shots to try to stop 39-year-old Adam Ali Mohammed, official said. Mohammed died shortly before reaching a hospital in the city of El-Arish.
■ISRAEL
Grave moves draw protests
Authorities began removing ancient graves to make way for construction of a hospital emergency room yesterday, setting off protests from ultra-Orthodox Jews. Officers forcibly carried off dozens of demonstrators who had staged a sit-in to try to stop the work outside Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said 30 protesters were arrested. Archaeologists have determined the graves belonged to Christians or pagans from the Byzantine period, about 1,400 years ago. Ultra-Orthodox Jews insist they are Jewish bones that shouldn’t be moved in accordance with religious practice. The Cabinet had voted to relocate the planned facility, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reversed that decision. The relocation would have cost millions.
■PUERTO RICO
Quake rattles things up
The US Geological Survey said an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7 has struck the Caribbean island. The quake hit at 1:16am 6km from the small community of Espino on the western side of the island and 101km from the capital, San Juan. It was recorded at a depth of 110km. There are no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
■UNITED STATES
Stolen mail recovered
The US Postal Service has recovered approximately 20,000 pieces of mail — some of them more than a decade old — from a Philadelphia postal carrier’s garage. Special Agent Scott Balfour said it took three mail trucks to remove the letters. Balfour said some of the mail dated back to 1997. Postal officials said they recovered the mail on April 28 and it was being delivered to customers this week. Balfour wouldn’t comment on what prompted the investigation, but said the carrier hadn’t been to work since February. Postal officials haven’t identified the carrier.
■CUBA
Gays dance through streets
Hundreds of gay and lesbian activists, some dressed in drag and others sporting multicolored flags representing sexual diversity, marched and danced through the streets of Havana on Saturday along with the daughter of President Raul Castro as part of a celebration aimed at eliminating homophobia around the world. Some of the marchers played drums and others walked on stilts as they made their way down a wide avenue in the capital’s hip Vedado neighborhood, where they have held a series of debates and workshops ahead of the celebration of the International Day Against Homophobia today, which participants say marks the day in 1990 when the WHO stopped listing homosexuality as a mental illness. “We have made progress, but we need to make more progress,” said Mariela Castro, a campaigner for gay rights on the island and the leader of the National Sexual Education Center.
■CANADA
Stranded fishermen rescued
Five fisherman were plucked from a lifeboat off the coast of Newfoundland after their fishing boat sank 90 nautical miles (166km) offshore, a search and rescue official said on Saturday. Their 16.5m wooden fishing boat was taking on water when the captain sent out a distress signal, said Captain Doug Keirstead of the Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax, Nova Scotia. A Hercules military aircraft, a helicopter and several Coast Guard vessels, as well as several fishing and merchant ships responded to the distress call, he said. “The captain decided to abandon ship because water levels were getting high, and the crew transferred to a lifeboat,” Keirstead said, adding that they were picked up by another fishing vessel that was first on the scene early on Saturday.
■MEXICO
Gunmen kill eight in bar
An armed band shot and killed eight people in a bar in the north and wounded 18 others in the latest outbreak of violence in the country, officials said. Authorities said the victims ranged in age from 15 to 33 in the bar in Torreon, Coahuila State, near the US border. A local official said a group of four gunman arrived near the bar in a van and “opened fire first on security personnel and then inside the bar.” More than 22,700 people have died in spiraling drug violence since President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on organized crime, official figures showed.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
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