New death-toll report in Myanmar
At least 15 people died in Myanmar’s biggest city when the military crushed September’s pro-democracy demonstrations, five more than the government has acknowledged, according to a U.N. human-rights investigator Friday.
The U.N.’s Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro told a news conference that the figure, based on post-mortems and other official information, was not necessarily complete and he did not know how many other people may have been killed elsewhere in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
Myanmar’s military government has said 10 people were killed when troops opened fire on crowds of peaceful protesters Sept. 26-27.
Islamabad, Pakistan
Pakistan swears in new government
Hours before a senior U.S. envoy, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, arrived for what were expected to be tense and difficult talks, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Friday swore in a loyalist-led caretaker government meant to remain in place until after parliamentary elections in early January.
U.S. officials said Negroponte was carrying a tough message for Musharraf, who imposed sweeping emergency measures Nov. 3. The general will be told he must lift the emergency decree, step down as head of the military and release thousands of political prisoners.
In a conciliatory gesture, the government early Friday lifted former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s house-detention and freed from house arrest prominent human-rights activist Asma Jahangir.
San Diego
Gunmen snatch corpse at morgue
Fifty heavily armed gunmen in a convoy of 14 vehicles cruised the streets of Ensenada, Mexico, on Wednesday night, stormed the city morgue, snatched a cadaver and sped off through the hills toward Tecate, shooting and killing two police officers who had set up a roadblock.
Federal authorities are investigating whether the dead man is drug cartel figure Francisco Merardo Leon Hinojosa, nicknamed “El Abulon” - the abalone.
Also
Cambodian police said Friday that at least 19 teenage girls have accused Alexander Trofimov, 41, a prominent Russian businessman, of sexual abuse in what authorities are calling the biggest pedophilia case in the country’s history.
Seattle Times news services