NABLUS, West Bank – Israeli troops killed six Palestinians, including a 17-year-old girl, in the bloodiest day of fighting this year across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said Saturday. The dead also included three militants traveling together in a car in the northern West Bank, and a man in Gaza killed in an Israeli airstrike in response to a Palestinian rocket attack. Israeli officials defended the operations as the latest steps in their ongoing war against Palestinian militants. But Palestinian officials said the bloodshed only hurt efforts to expand a cease-fire in Gaza to the West Bank.
Philippines: Peace Corps slaying
A Peace Corps volunteer found buried in a shallow grave in a Philippine mountain village was killed by blows to the head and there were signs that she had tried to ward off an attack, police said Saturday. Julia Campbell, 40, of Fairfax, Va., suffered “multiple blunt traumatic injuries of the head,” an official said. The police chief of Ifugao province said police recovered a bloodstained wood pole used to pound rice near the home of a suspect, who has gone into hiding. Investigators were looking into “robbery with homicide or rape with homicide,” he said.
Australia: Search for sailors ends
Police on Sunday suspended their search for the crew of a yacht found drifting off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef with sails up, engine running and food on the table, saying there was little chance of finding the three men alive. Police believe skipper Des Batten, 56, and brothers Peter and James Tunstead, ages 69 and 63, may have been swept off the Kaz II when it hit rough seas last Sunday. The men sent no distress calls, and their plight was not known about until Wednesday, when a plane spotted the catamaran drifting some 95 miles offshore.
Somalia: Battle rages in Mogadishu
Islamic insurgents and Ethiopian soldiers turned the streets of the capital Mogadishu into a battleground for a fourth straight day, firing rockets and mortar rounds at each other Saturday in what a human rights official said was the worst violence in years. At least 165 civilians have been killed this week’s fighting, including at least 52 on Saturday as residents hid inside, cowered under trees or abandoned the city altogether.
Chile: Fish ship workers missing
Chilean navy officials were searching Saturday for eight workers missing after a fire swept through a fish-processing ship off southern Chile, killing one person. Capt. Carlos Salgado said 116 members of the Hercules’ crew were rescued from the blaze late Friday near the island of Ancud. He said Saturday that one body was recovered but could not immediately be identified, and that the “search continues for eight crew members believed missing.” The rescued workers are citizens of China, Russia, Peru, Ukraine, Norway, Denmark and Panama, he said.
Indonesia: Train derails after storm
A passenger train derailed after heavy rain damaged tracks on a key Indonesian railway Saturday, leaving at least 70 people injured, an official said. Dozens of other trains had to be rerouted. Five of the train’s eight cars derailed in the Central Java province city of Garut, a spokesman for the state-owned train company said. “Nature is always unpredictable,” he said. “Some things are beyond human will.” At least 70 people were injured, 16 seriously, he said.
From Herald news services
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