Canada: Summit probe?
TORONTO — Civil liberties groups called for an investigation of police conduct Tuesday following the arrest of 900 people during the massive and sometimes violent protests at the global economic summits over the weekend.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association called for a public inquiry Tuesday into security operations at the G-20 and G-8 summits, which resulted in the largest mass arrests in Canadian history and included the use of tear gas and rubber bullets on protesters. Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair said Tuesday that less than half of the 900 arrested will be charged and many have been released.
China: Slide traps 107
BEIJING — Hope of finding survivors of a landslide that trapped at least 107 people was diminishing Tuesday as rescuers used heavy machinery including bulldozers to move debris in rain-hit southwestern China.
Villagers huddled in tents set up at the site as rescuers searched for their family members. The first body was pulled out late Tuesday, the official Xinhua News Agency said, only identifying it as that of a child.
Congo: 80 rebels killed
KINSHASA — A Congolese general says the army has killed 80 rebels from neighboring Rwanda and Uganda who crossed into volatile eastern Congo.
Gen. Amuli Bahigwa said Tuesday the army killed the rebels in an operation that started June 1. He said four soldiers were killed and that Ugandan rebels killed eight civilians.
Ghana: Mine collapse
DUNKWA-ON-OFFIN — Ghanaian officials say police have arrested the owner of an illegal mine where 80 miners are believed to be trapped after the mine collapsed.
Municipal chief Peter Owusu-Eshia says the abandoned gold mine collapsed Sunday after heavy rains. He said Tuesday police arrested a man who is alleged to have hired 136 people to work the mine.
India: 27 die in ambush
PATNA — Maoist rebels killed at least 27 paramilitary troops in an ambush in eastern India on Tuesday, the latest in a series of bold attacks by the guerrillas, a senior police official said.
A 50-strong patrol of the Central Reserve Police Force was ambushed Tuesday evening on a routine patrol, said Sunder Raj, a senior local police official. Ten were wounded.
India: 3 protesters killed
SRINAGAR — Police and paramilitary troops fired on thousands of anti-India protesters in Kashmir, killing at least three people in the worst street violence in a year, police said.
Faced with more than two weeks of increasingly strident protests in the divided Himalayan region, government forces have been accused of killing a total of 11 people in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Protesters demanding independence have attacked troops with rocks and sticks, and government forces have responded by launching tear gas, charging with batons and opening fire.
Mexico: Flu alert ends
MEXICO CITY — The government of Mexico lifted the alert for swine flu Tuesday, officially ending the health emergency in the country where the illness first appeared 14 months ago.
Secretary of Health Jose Angel Cordova said that as recently as October, 90 percent of influenza cases in Mexico were swine flu. But by May, it was down to 10 percent, the rest being cases of seasonal influenza virus that is less contagious.
S. Africa: Circumcisions
JOHANNESBURG — South African health officials said Tuesday they are alarmed by the rise in deaths among men who have had botched traditional circumcisions, after 39 young men died in the last month after undergoing the rite of passage into manhood.
Health officials estimate that as many as six young men have died every weekend in the past few weeks and that more than 120 young men are in hospitals nursing their botched wounds..