Three hostages shown in video
Two Canadians and a Briton taken hostage last fall during their Christian peace mission to Iraq were shown Tuesday in a videotape on Al-Jazeera television – without the American colleague who was captured with them.
The mysterious turn in a four-month-old hostage drama came on a day of simmering sectarian violence that left at least 16 people dead and amid continued wrangling over who will lead the country. Interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, fighting to keep his job in the next government, declared on television that he “will not be subdued by blackmail.”
The hostages seen in the latest video were Briton Norman Kember, 74, and Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32. They were shown sitting in chairs and speaking, although there was no audio. They appeared to be in good health.
Tom Fox, a 54-year-old Virginian abducted with them last Nov. 26, did not appear in the footage, and his absence was not explained.
Paris
Divers discover furry crustacean
A team of American-led divers has discovered a new crustacean in the South Pacific that resembles a lobster and is covered with what looks like silky, blond fur, French researchers said Tuesday.
Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta, was so distinct from other species that they created a new family and genus for it.
The divers found the animal in waters 7,540 feet deep at a site 900 miles south of Easter Island last year, according to Michel Segonzac of the French Institute for Sea Exploration.
The new crustacean is described in the journal of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.
The researchers said that while legions of new ocean species are discovered each year, it is quite rare to find one that merits a new family.
San Jose, Costa Rica
Arias declared election winner
A Nobel Peace Prize winner who favors a contentious free trade agreement with the United States was declared the country’s president-elect on Tuesday – more than a month after the vote that gave him a razor-thin victory over his closest rival.
Oscar Arias, who also served as president from 1986 to 1990, defeated his nearest rival in the race by little more than 18,000 votes of the 1.6 million ballots cast, winning 664,551 votes to 646,382 for Otton Solis.
The final official vote tally was delayed both by challenges from Solis’ campaign and the closeness of the race, which prompted election officials to recount all of the votes by hand before declaring a winner.
Arias, 65, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his work as a mediator to help end the civil wars that wracked Central America in the 1980s.