The world in brief

— QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The attack was so brutal I can’t even tell you ... even animals don’t behave like that.”

The unidentified companion of a woman who was gang-raped aboard a bus in New Delhi, recounting the attack and its aftermath in a television interview Article, this page

Afghans freeing 400 ex-U.S. prisoners

KABUL - Some 250 prisoners formerly held by the U.S. have been released by Afghan authorities in hopes that this will lead to reconciliation in the 11-year conflict, a Defense Ministry spokesman said Friday.

Police Maj. Jalal Uddin said that 80 were freed from prisons across the country Friday, the latest batch of a total of 400 to be released this week. The released prisoners had been captured in operations against the Taliban and other groups.

“We are certain they can help to bring peace in Afghanistan and will support the government,” he said. Uddin said members of the Afghan High Peace Council, as well as relatives, were at the Kabul prison for the release. The council is tasked with seeking a peace agreement with the Taliban and other militant groups before NATO, including the United States, withdraws most of its forces by the end of 2014.

The council also hopes that the release of 26 Taliban prisoners by Pakistan over the past two months will help end the conflict, with the freed serving as intermediaries between Kabul and the Taliban leadership.

Fatah’s mass rally in Gaza first since ’07

JERUSALEM - The Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas held a mass rally in Gaza on Friday to mark the 48th anniversary of its founding, the first such gathering permitted by the rival Islamist Hamas group since it seized control of the territory in a brief civil war in 2007.

The rally was another sign of thawing relations between the factions since November, when Israel launched a military offensive to halt rocket fire from Gaza and Abbas won limited recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.

Hamas has enjoyed a surge of popularity among Palestinians after firing rockets deep into Israel during the recent conflict, and Fatah has been buoyed by the statehood vote at the United Nations, spurring renewed moves to carry out a stalled reconciliation accord signed by the factions in 2011.

Hamas granted permission for the Fatah rally in Gaza after it was allowed to hold two anniversary rallies last month in the West Bank, parts of which are controlled by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. Since their split five years ago, each faction had banned public gatherings by its rival.

Team pursues Spitfire stash in Burma

LONDON - An airplane-obsessed farmer, a freelance archaeologist and a team of excavators are heading from Britain to the Burmese city of Rangoon today to find a nearly forgotten stash of British fighter planes thought to be carefully buried beneath the former capital’s airfield.

The venture, backed with a million-dollar guarantee from a Belarusian video-game company, could uncover dozens of Spitfire aircraft locked underground by American engineers at the end of World War II.

“We could easily double the number of Spitfires that are still known to exist,” said 63-year-old David Cundall, the farmer and private pilot who has spent nearly two decades pursuing the theory that 36 of the famous fighter planes were buried, still in excellent condition, in wooden crates in a riverbed at the end of an airport runway.

“In the Spitfire world it will be similar to finding Tutankhamen’s tomb,” he told reporters at a media conference held in a London airport hotel Friday.

Zoo elephants gobble Christmas trees

BERLIN - Elephants at the Berlin Zoo finally got a chance to tuck into their Christmas dinner: a feast of donated pine trees.

The zoo treated its elephants and some of its other animals to the trees for lunch Friday. Before gobbling the greenery, elephants young and old played with the trees, whose strong smell attracts them.

Elephant keeper Ragnar Kuehne said the unsold Christmas trees were donated by local vendors.

He said “the animals love it. For them, the Christmas feast is starting now.”

Kuehne says the zoo doesn’t accept trees from the public, which could contain chemicals or leftover decorations. He also says Christmas trees inside houses aren’t as fresh and juicy as those at cold outdoor markets - which is just how the elephants like them.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 01/05/2013

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