Afghanistan
KABUL — The U.S. military on Saturday announced its second investigation in a week into allegations of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan, amid growing demands from rights groups for secretive U.S.-run jails across the country to be opened for outside scrutiny. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Tucker Mansager gave few details of the latest allegations, which follow complaints earlier this week from an Afghan police officer who said he was beaten and sexually assaulted during 40 days in custody last summer.
Brazil
SAO PAULO — A domestic airliner crashed near the Amazon city of Manaus, killing all 30 passengers and three crew members, a fire department official said Saturday. The turboprop plane owned by regional airliner Rico Linhas Aereas was traveling from the western Amazon city Sao Paulo de Olivenca to Manaus, the inland capital of the state of Amazonas, when it crashed Friday night.
Britain
LONDON — British veterans of the ships that plied treacherous Arctic seas to supply Soviet troops during World War II protested outside the prime minister's residence Saturday seeking a medal to mark their campaign.
Japan
TOKYO — Japan, a staunch advocate of the Kyoto protocol on global warming, may not meet its targets for cutting pollution unless it takes drastic action. Environmentalists criticize Tokyo for making renewable energy — such as wind and solar power — a low priority. Tokyo has promised a 6 percent cut in emissions of greenhouse gases, thought to be a key cause of global warming.
Nigeria
LAGOS — Police fired tear gas and arrested dozens, including the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, during an anti-government protest Saturday in Nigeria's commercial capital. The writer was among 500 demonstrators at a protest in central Lagos organized by human rights and other civic groups calling for the government's resignation.
North Korea
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Saturday harshly condemned the United States for abusing prisoners in Iraq, calling it an "empire of evil." The communist, totalitarian state's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, a ruling party organization, as saying that American soldiers "committed shuddering atrocities without hesitation." North Korea is frequently named as one of the world's most egregious rights abusers, accused of torture, forced abortions and infanticide, as well as harsh restrictions on freedom of expression and foreign travel.
Pakistan
QUETTA — A man and three of his cousins shot dead his wife, son, mother and four brothers in a remote tribal town in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday, police said. Two of the suspected attackers were arrested after the shooting in Tambu, a town 215 miles south of Quetta, capital of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, police official Khalid Hanif said.
South Korea
SEOUL — The U.S. Army command in Seoul expressed "sincere regrets" Saturday after a South Korean man was reportedly stabbed by a drunken American soldier. A U.S. military statement identified the wounded man as Pak Hung-sik but did not release the identity of the American soldier involved in the attack. A full investigation will be launched, it added. The statement gave no further details.
Syria
DAMASCUS — Four men accused of carrying out an attack in Syria's capital last month were Syrian Islamic extremists who acted on their own, Syrian officials said Saturday. Syria's state-run news agency quoted an Interior Ministry official as identifying the assailants as Ayman Shlash and Mohammed al-Nahhar, said to have died in the April 27 clash with security forces in a diplomatic quarter of Damascus. Two others, identified as Ahmed Shlash and Ezzo al-Hussein, were arrested.
Zimbabwe
NAIROBI, Kenya — Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe plans to retire when his term ends in 2008 and has begun searching for a successor, a Kenyan newspaper reported Saturday. Mugabe has ruled the southern African nation since its independence from Britain in 1980. "I want to retire from politics. I have had enough," Mugabe was quoted as saying by Kenya's East African Standard newspaper. "I have not even completed this term, I have four more years and I am not so young."