N. Korea suspends dismantling nukes
Less than two months after North Korea blew up the cooling tower of its main nuclear plant in a televised spectacle, the government Tuesday announced it had suspended the dismantling of its nuclear program.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said it was responding to U.S. delays in removing it from a list of “terror-sponsoring” states. The ministry said the suspension began Aug. 14 and that the regime would next consider restoring some of what had been dismantled already at the main nuclear compound in Yongbyon.
President Bush asked Congress on June 27 to remove North Korea from the terror list, but the administration also has said that the measure wouldn’t go through until the U.S. could verify a 60-page inventory North Korea had submitted of its nuclear program.
Peshawar, Pakistan
U.S. diplomat survives attack
A U.S. diplomat narrowly escaped an attempt on her life Tuesday when two men with AK-47s jumped in front of her armored vehicle and sprayed it with bullets, staging a brazen attack that raised fears other foreigners could be targeted.
The driver eluded by jamming the vehicle into reverse and speeding away.
Lynne Tracy, an Ohio native who heads the U.S. consulate in restive northwestern Pakistan, left her home in an upscale and heavily guarded area of Peshawar with a bodyguard provided by the local anti-terrorism squad about 8 a.m., police chief Arshad Khan said.
Moments later, the vehicle came under heavy gunfire, Khan said. He said no one was hit by bullets, but a rickshaw driver was hospitalized after his three-wheeled taxi was hit by the consulate vehicle during its rapid retreat to Tracy’s home.
Baghdad
Bomber attacks police hopefuls
A suicide bomber with explosives hidden beneath his traditional robe blew himself up Tuesday in a crowd of Iraqis trying to join the police force, killing at least 25 people in the second major bombing in Iraq this week.
The attack occurred in the town of Jalula, a remote, impoverished community about 80 miles northeast of Baghdad that lies in Diyala province, where a U.S.-Iraqi offensive is being waged against the last major insurgent stronghold near the capital.
No group claimed responsibility for the bombing, but suicide attacks are the hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni Islamist extremists that operate in Diyala.