World Digest
Israel plans to taunt hunger strikers

HATEM MOUSSA / AP Palestinian children wear chains during a Gaza Strip protest demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails. About 1,700 Palestinian prisoners are on a hunger strike.

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

About 1,700 of the 7,000 Palestinians being held by Israel began their hunger strike Sunday in an effort to stop strip searches, gain more-frequent family visits, improve sanitary conditions and install public telephones. Palestinian officials have embraced the strike as a protest against "this occupier and its racist and inhumane means."

Israeli officials call the strike a ploy to secure easier communication with militant groups waging an almost 4-year-old uprising.

The Prisons Service said it would draw on tactics used in hunger strikes by jailed Northern Irish militants in the 1970s and 1980s, such as withholding basic amenities.

"Among the various methods we plan to employ is holding barbecues outside the walls of the affected prisons," a Prisons Service spokesman said.

Ipoh, Malaysia

3 acquitted in death of American woman

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A court yesterday acquitted three Malaysians charged with killing an American woman in 2001 in an occult ritual to obtain lottery numbers.

The skeletal remains of 35-year-old Carolyn Janice Ahmad were discovered in a shallow grave at an oil-palm plantation in northern Malaysia in June 2001. Authorities alleged the three men and a Hindu spirit medium who died in an auto accident three years ago killed Ahmad on Nov. 9, 1999, as a sacrifice to obtain lottery tips from the Hindu goddess Kali.

High Court Judicial Commissioner Balia Yusuf Wahi said discrepancies in the testimony of key witnesses showed that prosecutors did not have a solid-enough case.

Ahmad, a native of Duluth, Minn., was a married to a Malaysian and lived in Malaysia. They had three children.
 
Berlin

Nurse confesses to 2 more killings

A German nurse facing trial for killing 10 patients has confessed to two more killings, prosecutors said yesterday as an investigation continued into whether he deliberately caused up to 68 more deaths.

The 25-year-old man, who has not been named, worked in a hospital in the southern German town of Sonthofen and was arrested in July. He told police he had killed the 10 patients aged 60 and over because he couldn't stand seeing them "wasting away" in pain.

He has now also confessed to killing a woman in her 80s and a man in his 90s, the prosecutors' office said.

The nurse worked in the hospital's internal-diseases ward and is suspected of killing his victims with lethal injections.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Cruise itinerary cut way back

The American organizers of a cruise to mark the 200th anniversary of Haiti's independence have canceled most of its itinerary inside the country, citing concerns about the legitimacy of the government that replaced ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February.

Actor Danny Glover, one of the organizers of the seven-day cruise, boycotted the trip altogether.

"Due to the increasingly critical political situation in Haiti, which resulted in a loss of life, oppression and incarceration of thousands of Haitians, I have canceled my participation," Glover said in Florida before the cruise set sail Saturday.

The cruise, billed as "Cruising Into History," still was due to arrive in Haiti tomorrow with about 500 Americans on board, but the trip has been confined to an isolated strip of beach after opposition from groups opposed to the interim government.

Organizers canceled visits to about 10 sites in Haiti where preparations for festivals and performances began two years ago. Aristide accuses the United States of forcing him from office, a charge the Bush administration denies.

Kabul, Afghanistan

Prison operator says U.S. knew of activities

Jonathan K. Idema, the American accused of running a freelance anti-terror operation and private prison in Afghanistan, testified in court yesterday that he could prove that U.S. and Afghan authorities were fully aware of his actions and accused the FBI of confiscating evidence that would support his claim.

"They knew every single thing we did, every single day," he said.

U.S. military and intelligence officials here have repeatedly denied having any affiliation with Idema, although they acknowledge having received one prisoner from him. International peacekeeping officials in Kabul say they cooperated with him briefly until learning he was an impostor.

Idema and two American associates, along with four of their Afghan employees, have been charged with entering the country illegally, operating an illegal jail, detaining and imprisoning eight Afghan citizens, kidnapping and torture. All have been in custody since their arrest July 4. If convicted, they could face 20 years in Afghan prisons.