The world in brief

An injured victim of an avalanche is rescued on Mount Manaslu in northern Nepal on Sunday. The avalanche swept away climbers on a Himalayan peak, leaving at least nine dead and six others missing, officials said. Video is available at arkansasonline.com/videos.
An injured victim of an avalanche is rescued on Mount Manaslu in northern Nepal on Sunday. The avalanche swept away climbers on a Himalayan peak, leaving at least nine dead and six others missing, officials said. Video is available at arkansasonline.com/videos.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“We are disbanding all armed groups that do not fall under the authority of the government. We are also banning the use of violence and carrying of weapons in public places.”

Libyan President Mohammed el-Megaref Article, 1A

Party denounces filmmaker bounty

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan’s Awami National Party, a central government coalition partner, distanced itself from a minister who promised a bounty to kill the maker of an anti-Islam film that has sparked protests in the Muslim world.

The threat isn’t in keeping with the party’s policy of nonviolence, Zahid Khan, a party spokesman, said in a phone interview from Peshawar on Sunday. Federal Railway Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour said Saturday that he would pay $100,000 to have the movie producer killed, according to local media outlets, including the Dawn newspaper.

The film, called Innocence of Muslims, has sparked deadly attacks on U.S. and European targets from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. Pakistanis protesting the movie have clashed with police in several cities where mobs set fire to movie theaters, banks, fast-food outlets and vehicles.

Bilour couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Nepal avalanche kills nine climbers

KATMANDU, Nepal - An avalanche hit climbers on a high Himalayan peak in Nepal on Sunday, leaving at least nine dead and six others missing, officials said. Many of the climbers were French or German.

Police official Basanta Bahadur Kuwar said the bodies of a Nepalese guide and a German man were recovered and that rescue pilots had spotted seven other bodies on the slopes of Mount Manaslu in northern Nepal, the eighth highest mountain in the world.

In Madrid, Spain’s Foreign Ministry said one of those killed was Spanish but did not release the person’s identity.

The identities of the other victims were still being confirmed.

Ten other climbers survived the avalanche, but many were injured and were flown to hospitals by rescue helicopters, Kuwar said.

China halts events to mark Japan ties

TOKYO - China has postponed events to commemorate 40 years of diplomatic relations with Japan amid a simmering territorial dispute between the countries.

Japanese Foreign Ministry official Hiroaki Sakamoto confirmed that China has halted the events, planned for Thursday. He did not provide further details.

China’s Xinhua News Agency, citing officials with the China-Japan Friendship Association and another government-affiliated group, reported Sunday that the events would not take place as planned. It said they would be held “at a proper time.”

Calls to China’s Foreign Ministry were not answered Sunday. In its evening broadcast, China Central Television said the timing of the events was being “adjusted.”

Relations have sunk to their worst level in years as the two sides spar over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries and by Taiwan.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement late Saturday that Japanese personnel had landed on the islands to stop Taiwanese activists from doing so, and China had protested strongly to Japan over the “severe infringement upon China’s territorial sovereignty.”

Front Section, Pages 5 on 09/24/2012

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