Vehicles catch fire in France-Italy tunnel
Chambery, France A truck loaded with tires and another carrying paint caught fire along with two other vehicles Saturday inside an eight-mile-long Alpine tunnel between France and Italy, killing at least one person and shutting down the road, officials said.
Some trucks reportedly were trapped inside as firefighters swarmed to the Frejus Alpine tunnel. Hours later, about a mile of the tunnel could not be entered because of dense smoke and heat.
Firefighters said four vehicles had caught fire: the truck loaded with tires, another loaded with paint, a van of the French tunnel company and a car. Italian firefighters found one body in the tunnel. They also were trying to locate three or four people seen trying to flee who might have taken refuge in one of the safety areas lining the tunnel.
Another body located in Costa Rican crash
San Jose, Costa Rica Searchers found the fifth and final body Saturday from a small plane carrying U.S. and Canadian skydivers that crashed off Costa Rica’s coast, authorities said.
The Cessna 206, which went down Tuesday with six people on board, was owned by Milt Burton, a Canadian-born skydiver who worked as a Hollywood stuntman. He died in the crash. American William Slattery was the only survivor. The fifth body was found Saturday at a beach about 40 miles southwest of San Jose.
The plane also was carrying Jean Roman, a Costa Rica-U.S. dual national; Costa Rican pilot Jorge Melendez; U.S. citizen James Simplicio; and Emmanuel Sanchez, a U.S. resident of Mexican origin.
Reputed IRA veteran facing murder charge
Belfast, Northern Ireland A reputed Irish Republican Army veteran was arraigned Saturday on a charge he murdered a Catholic man, a killing that has overshadowed Northern Ireland’s peace process.
Terence “Jock” Davison, 49, offered no plea as prosecutors accused him of killing Robert McCartney, stabbed in the neck and stomach and bludgeoned with iron bars outside a Belfast pub on Jan. 30.
McCartney’s five sisters, who led a campaign highlighting the IRA’s alleged destruction of evidence and intimidation of witnesses, sat not far from family and friends of Davison.
One of Davison’s alleged IRA accomplices, 36-year-old James McCormick, was charged with attempted murder of McCartney’s friend Brendan Devine. McCormick, who offered no plea, was arrested Wednesday in England.
Zimbabwean troops arrest more traders
Harare, Zimbabwe The Zimbabwean government kept up its blitz on shack dwellers and street traders despite reports on Saturday that President Robert Mugabe had ordered a halt to the two-week crackdown.
In the northwestern town of Chinhoyi, police arrested 708 vendors and seized staples including sugar, cornmeal and cooking oil, state radio reported. They arrested 621 gold prospectors, a source of income for many unemployed.
More than 30,000 people have been detained and 200,000 have lost their homes since the start of the crackdown on May 19, a U.N. housing expert said on Friday.
War criminals’ remains to stay at Tokyo shrine
Tokyo The operators of a Tokyo war shrine have refused to remove the remains of war criminals despite suggestions that doing so could calm other countries’ anger over the prime minister’s visits to the shrine, a news report said Saturday.
Yasukuni Shrine honors executed war criminals among Japan’s 2.5 million war dead. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s annual visits have outraged China and other Asian countries that suffered atrocities at the hands of Japanese troops during World War II.
Senior leaders of Koizumi’s own party have been trying to discourage him from making the visits, as tensions have escalated between Japan and its neighbors over the shrine visits, territorial disputes and other issues.