The world in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“You could see it as a last piece in a jigsaw peace process, which has been very slowly and carefully put together over 20 years.”

Diarmaid Ferriter,

a professor of modern history at University College Dublin, on the shaking of hands between Queen Elizabeth II and a former Irish Republican Army commander Article, this page

2 bodies found in Ontario mall ruin

ELLIOT LAKE, Ontario - Officials recovered two bodies after dismantling a piece of a partially collapsed Ontario shopping mall Wednesday and said they are confident no other victims are inside. The renewed rescue effort came after angry residents shouted down fears that the unstable structure made the work too risky to continue.

Police Staff Inspector Bill Neadles of the Toronto-based Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team said the second victim was removed.

Rescuers had not identified signs of life after detecting breathing inside the rubble early Monday, nearly two days after Saturday’s collapse. Authorities called off work Monday afternoon over fears of another collapse, but dozens of angry residents protested in front of City Hall, saying that abandoning trapped comrades would be unthinkable in the culture of the city, a former mining community.

Work at the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake resumed late Tuesday, with anxious residents camping outside and watching a robotic arm strip away the mall’s facade.

Norway to build psych ward for killer

OSLO - Norway’s Health Directorate approved plans Wednesday to build a psychiatric ward inside Oslo’s Ila Prison, specially designed for confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik.

Even if found criminally insane, the 33-year-old rightist extremist is likely to remain inside the walls of the prison where he has been held since his bomb and gun attacks in July.

The twin attacks on July 22 included a bombing in downtown Oslo and a shooting massacre at a youth camp outside the capital. Breivik admitted to both attacks, which killed 77 people.

Since his guilt is not in question, Breivik’s mental state was the key issue during his trial, which ended last week.

The court is to make a ruling Aug. 24.

Bangladeshi landslides, rain kill 91

DHAKA, Bangladesh - Landslides and floods caused by monsoon rains killed at least 91 people in southern Bangladesh and many more were missing, the government said Wednesday.

Officials said the landslides occurred mainly in remote villages with poor roads, making rescue work more difficult.

At least 37 died in Cox’s Bazar, 33 in neighboring Bandarban and another 21 in Chittagong, mostly in a series of landslides, the Disaster Management Ministry said. It said soldiers were joining the search for the missing.

Three days of torrential rain in the region of small hills and forests dislodged chunks of earth that buried flimsy huts where families were sleeping late Tuesday and early Wednesday. Many homeless people live at the foot of the hills or close to them despite warnings from authorities.

Many of the dead were women and children, officials said. In Bandarban an 11-year-old boy was the only member of his family to survive because he was away when mud buried his hut. His parents and three siblings perished.

130 plucked from ocean off Australia

SYDNEY - Australian officials said Wednesday that 130 survivors, most of them reported to be women and children, had been rescued after a ship full of apparent asylum-seekers trying to reach Australia capsized in the Indian Ocean.

The Australian Customs and Border Protection Authority said 134 people were aboard the vessel and that four had died in the accident, which occurred about 115 miles south of the main Indonesian island of Java - roughly halfway to Christmas Island, a remote Australian territory that has become a magnet for desperate immigration attempts in overcrowded boats.

The capsizing was the second major accident in those waters involving asylum-seekers in less than a week.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a statement that the survivors had been picked up by an Australian naval patrol boat and several merchant ships that responded to the stricken vessel’s distress call early Wednesday. As recently as Sunday, the navy was searching the same area for survivors or bodies from another rickety boat that capsized last Thursday. Some 90 people are thought to have died in that accident; about 110 were rescued.

Front Section, Pages 5 on 06/28/2012

Upcoming Events