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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Military helicopter crash kills seven

The Spokesman-Review

A South Korean army helicopter crashed into a mountain near Seoul early today, killing all seven people on board, an army officer said.

The UH-1H went down in Yangpyong, about 25 miles east of Seoul, around 1:40 a.m. local time, said army spokesman Lt. Col. Ko Dong-hun.

Two pilots, two medical officers and three soldiers died when the aircraft crashed while returning to base after transporting an emergency patient to a military hospital, he said. One woman was among the dead.

Ko said soldiers were recovering the bodies from the mountain to transport them to a military hospital.

The chopper disappeared from radar and lost communications shortly before the accident, said Ko, adding that an investigation was under way to determine the cause of the crash.

The UH-1H, first introduced to South Korea in the mid-1960s, is used for transporting troops and military equipment, Ko said. Last year, three helicopters and two fighter jets crashed in South Korea.

Johannesburg, South Africa

Tutu leads call for Myanmar embargo

Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu led a call by nine peace prize recipients Tuesday for the United Nations Security Council to act to halt the sale of arms to the military regime of Myanmar.

The laureates, including the Dalai Lama and Elie Wiesel, also called for nations to implement arms embargoes to prevent Myanmar from getting weapons that are used against its citizens.

Most Western nations embargo arms sales to Myanmar due to its poor human rights record and the junta’s failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government. Russia supplies Myanmar with arms, and Rosatom, the Russian federal atomic energy agency, signed a deal last May to build a nuclear research center there.

“We call upon the international community to actively work to implement arms embargoes against the regime,” the laureates said in a statement.

Myanmar’s military government violently quashed peaceful protests in September. The U.N. estimates at least 31 people were killed.