European aid to Gaza cut, plunging thousands into dark

Tens of thousands of Gaza Strip residents were without electricity Monday after the European Union stopped paying to supply fuel to a Gaza power station serving more than a fourth of the coastal enclave.

It was not clear whether the European aid, cut off to deny money to the radical Hamas movement, would be resumed or how long power outages in central Gaza would go on. A din of private generators dominated Gaza City’s main market areas as merchants and residents sought to keep their lights on.

The blackouts, which began Friday night and grew to affect more than 500,000 residents by Sunday, spelled fresh anxiety for Gazans who have felt increasingly cut off since Hamas forcibly took control of the impoverished strip in June by routing the rival Fatah movement.

Israel has closed its borders with Gaza to shipments of all but humanitarian goods and has joined the United States and Europe in refusing contact with Hamas.

A spokeswoman for the European Commission said the fuel shipments, initially halted Thursday on security grounds, were to have resumed Sunday.

But European officials refused to lift the cutoff after learning Hamas planned to impose a tax on electricity produced by the Gaza power plant, said Alix de Mauny, spokeswoman for the commission in Jerusalem. Resuming fuel payments could, in effect, help Hamas raise money by paying for the production of taxable electricity, she said.

LA PAZ, Bolivia

Bolivia president to give half of pay to help quake victims

President Evo Morales said Monday he will donate half his monthly salary, about $950, to help victims of last week’s earthquake in Peru.

As part of a national campaign to collect money and supplies for Bolivia’s Andean neighbor, Vice President Alvaro Garcia will also donate half his paycheck, while Cabinet members and other government officials will chip in 25 percent, Morales said.

“We cannot abandon our Peruvian brothers,” Morales said.

TORONTO

Canadian pilot’s death caused when seat belt came loose

A Canadian Forces pilot who died when his jet crashed while rehearsing for an air show last May lost control after his seat belt unfastened as he flew upside down, according to an investigator’s report released Monday.

Capt. Shawn McCaughey, 31, fell out of his seat while his Canadair CT-114 Tutor was in a practice formation with three other planes and flying upside down at an altitude of 300 feet over Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, according to the interim report.

The single-engine jet climbed and rolled upright before nosing over at about 750 feet and then hitting the ground at about 45 degrees, nose down, according to the interim report.

McCaughey, who apparently was unable to eject after falling from his seat, died when the aircraft hit the ground. Investigators are still looking into how McCaughey’s seat belt became unfastened.

CAIRO, Egypt

Egypt convicts 4 for role in attacks that killed tourists

Four terror suspects were convicted by a security court Monday and sentenced to life in prison for their involvement in attacks that killed two French tourists and an American in 2005, judicial officials said.

They had pleaded not guilty to charges that included collaborating in the attacks; unlicensed possession of weapons, ammunition and explosives; harboring fugitives and belonging to a banned group. Egyptian authorities have said the suspects had established an Islamic extremist group.

Five other suspects, including two women, received jail sentences that ranged from one to 10 years in prison. The court acquitted four others over the lack of evidence, the officials said. The hearing for one suspect was postponed.

In the first attack, which occurred on the fringes of a bazaar in April 7, 2005, a bomber and the three foreigners died. Eighteen people were wounded.

In the second attack, on April 30, a bomber died when he leapt from a bridge behind the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo, landing near a tourist bus. Nine people were wounded, four of them foreigners.

SAO PAULO, Brazil

Police say man helped build tunnel for $70 million heist

Police captured a man accused of building a tunnel that thieves used to steal $70 million two years ago in one of the world’s biggest bank heists, Brazilian authorities said Monday.

Marcos Rogerio Machado de Morais, a 33-year-old engineer by profession, was arrested while shopping with his family at a Sao Paulo mall on Friday, said Maria Fernanda, a spokeswoman with the Sao Paulo state Public Safety Department.

Morais is accused of overseeing the construction of a 260-foot tunnel — complete with wooden panels and electrical lighting — that stretched from a house to the vault of a Brazilian central bank branch in the northern city of Fortaleza.

Thieves used shovels, pickaxes, saws and drills to dig the tunnel and cut through the vault’s 3.6-foot-thick, steel-reinforced concrete floor. They also created a pulley system with a plastic barrel to transport the money through the tunnel.

From wire reports