Bolivian unrest called attempted coup

Santiago, Chile

South American presidents met Monday hoping to prevent a political collapse in Bolivia, where the government planned to charge a rebellious eastern governor with genocide for allegedly ordering the machine-gunning of peasants.

Bolivia's leftist president, Evo Morales, arrived at the summit having effectively lost control of half of his country to protesters.

Morales accused the governors of Bolivia's lowland provinces of inciting a coup and "crimes against humanity by groups massacring the poorest of my country."

The governors want a bigger share of gas profits and want Morales to cancel a referendum on a new constitution.

Paris

U.N. says Iran stonewalling

Iran failed to resolve lingering questions about alleged nuclear-weapons research and modestly expanded its ability to produce sensitive radioactive material that could be used for a bomb, said a report issued Monday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s atomic watchdog.

Still, Iran is less than one-third of the way toward producing enough nuclear material for a single atomic weapon unless it drastically expands its program, nuclear experts have said.

Islamabad, Pakistan

Afghans free son of al-Qaida suspect

The 12-year-old son of a woman suspected of links to al-Qaida and facing charges in New York was freed Monday by Afghanistan and sent to his family in Pakistan, two months after he was detained with his mother.

Officials say the boy, Ali Hassan, and his mother, Aafia Siddiqui, were detained in Afghanistan's Ghazni province in July. The U.S.-educated Pakistani woman was then handed over to U.S. custody and flown to New York where she was accused of trying to kill U.S. personnel.

Ali was with his mother at the time of her arrest and had been in Afghan custody ever since, officials said.

Also

The Aeroflot pilot of the Boeing 737-500 that crashed Sunday in Russia, killing all 88 people on board, ignored commands from air traffic controllers, according to news reports Monday. Officials have blamed a faulty engine for the crash in the Ural Mountains city of Perm.

Seattle Times news services