Daily Herald | Posted: Saturday, October 4, 2008 11:00 pm
U.S. helicopters collide in Baghdad, killing one
BAGHDAD -- Two U.S. helicopters collided while landing at a base in Baghdad on Saturday, killing one Iraqi soldier and wounding four people, including two Americans, the military said. It was the second helicopter crash in two weeks.
The U.S. military said hostile fire did not appear to be the cause.
The two UH-60 Black Hawks crashed shortly before 9 p.m. in a northern section of the capital known as Azamiyah, the military said. The wounded included two American troops and two other Iraqis, but the total number of people on board was not yet known, a statement said.
"The situation is under control. Emergency services are on the scene," military spokesman Lt. Patrick Evans said. An investigation into the crash was under way.
Also Saturday, the military said it killed an al-Qaida in Iraq leader suspected of masterminding one of the deadliest attacks in Baghdad, several other recent bombings and the 2006 videotaped killing of a Russian official.
N. Korean leader makes public appearance
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il watched a university soccer game, a state-run news agency said from Pyongyang on Saturday, reporting on the leader's first public appearance in nearly two months.
Kim and other political leaders watched the game held to mark the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the university named after his late father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, the Korean Central News Agency report said.
The university's 62nd anniversary was Oct. 1 but the report did not say when or where the game was held. It also did not say whether Kim, who is believed to have suffered a stroke in August, attended the game in person. There was no mention of his health.
The 66-year-old leader had not been seen in public since mid-August, missing two key occasions -- the 60th anniversary of the founding of North Korea and Korean Thanksgiving -- amid mounting speculation about his health.
U.S. and South Korean officials said last month that Kim, believed to have diabetes and other chronic ailments, suffered a stroke, citing unidentified sources. North Korean officials, however, steadfastly denied he was ill.
Last female of turtle species fails to produce
SUZHOU, China -- She's around 80 years old. He's 100. Breathless scientists watched as the world's most endangered turtles successfully mated.
But the attempt to breed the species' last known female with the last known male in China has failed because the eggs didn't hatch, disappointed conservationists said Saturday.
The elderly pair can try again next year, part of a delicate attempt to keep the species alive.
Just four known Yangtze giant soft-shell turtles are left and three are male.
The only female was found in a Chinese zoo just last year after a long and desperate search. She was quickly protected with a surveillance camera, a guard and bulletproof glass, and given the nickname "China Girl."
Morales ups rhetoric against U.S. aid
LA PAZ, Bolivia -- President Evo Morales said Saturday that Bolivia does not need U.S. help to control its coca crop, stepping up his anti-Washington rhetoric days after rejecting an American request to fly an anti-drug plane over the South American nation's territory.
Morales also compared U.S. counter-drug efforts in the country, including Drug Enforcement Administration flights, to espionage.
"It's important that the international community knows that here, we don't need control of the United States on coca cultivation," the president told a gathering of coca farmers. "We can control ourselves internally. We don't need any spying from anybody."
U.S. Embassy spokesman Eric Watnik said the DEA makes periodic requests to fly a plane transporting U.S. and Bolivian anti-narcotics personnel around the country. The aircraft is not used for surveillance, he said.
Relations between Washington and La Paz have increasingly deteriorated in recent weeks. Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador last month, accusing him of supporting deadly protests organized by his conservative opposition. The former ambassador denies the allegations.
U.N. nuclear meeting criticizes Israel
VIENNA, Austria -- A U.N. nuclear conference indirectly criticized Israel on Saturday for refusing to put its atomic program under international purview, but the Jewish state evaded a Muslim-led attempt to link it to nuclear proliferation in the Mideast.
As in past years at the International Atomic Energy Agency's general conference, Iran, Israel's most outspoken foe, spearheaded the verbal attack on Israel, which is widely considered to have nuclear arms but has a "no tell" policy on the issue.
Chief Iranian delegate Ali Ashgar Soltanieh said Israel's nuclear capabilities represent a "serious and continued threat to the security of neighboring and other states."
And he took the U.S. and other Western backers of Israel to task for their "shameful silence" on what he said was the menace posed by Israel's atomic arsenal.
The meeting of 145 nations voted for a resolution urging all nations to open their nuclear activities to outside inspections and work toward the establishment of a Mideast nuclear weapons free zone.