QUOTE OF THE DAY
“President Putin has a dream to restore the Soviet Union. And every day, he goes further and further. And God knows where is the final destination.”
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on NBC’s Meet the Press, expressing fears that the Russian leader is seeking to restore Moscow’s previous geopolitical and territorial might Article, 7A
13th avalanche victim found; 3 missing
KATMANDU, Nepal - Search teams recovered a 13th body Saturday from the snow and ice covering a dangerous climbing pass on Mount Everest, where an avalanche a day earlier swept over a group of Sherpa guides in the deadliest disaster on the world’s highest peak.
Another three guides remained missing, and searchers were working quickly to find them in case weather conditions deteriorated, said Maddhu Sunan Burlakoti, head of the Nepalese government’s mountaineering department.
But the painstaking effort involved testing the strength of newly fallen snow and using extra clamps, ropes and aluminum ladders to navigate the treacherous Khumbu icefall, a maze of immense ice chunks and crevasses.
The avalanche slammed into the guides about 6:30 a.m. Friday near the “popcorn field,” a section of the Khumbu known for its bulging chunks of ice. The Sherpa guides, about 25 of them, were among the first people making their way up the mountain this climbing season. They were hauling gear to the higher camps that their clients would use in attempts to reach the summit next month.
One of the survivors told his relatives that the path had been unstable just before the snow slide hit. The area is considered particularly dangerous because of its steep slope and deep crevasses that cut through the snow and ice covering the pass year round.
16 slain in day of bombings across Iraq
BAGHDAD - Attacks across Iraq, including bombings that targeted shoppers in a Sunni neighborhood in the country’s capital, killed at least 16 people Saturday, authorities said.
The deadliest attacks struck Baghdad’s predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Dora. Police said two bombs exploded Saturday morning on busy commercial streets, killing four people. That night, three more bomb blasts in the same area killed five people and wounded 10, police said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blasts, though Shiite militants have retaliated in the past for Sunni insurgent groups killing Shiites. The Sunni-led violence, part of a series of stepped-up attacks since last year, aims at undermining Iraq’s Shiite-led government ahead of a crucial vote later this month.
Outside Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed five soldiers and wounded eight at a checkpoint in Mishada, some 20 miles north of the capital, police said. Also Saturday, a roadside bomb killed two soldiers on patrol and wounded five people in Tarmiyah, 30 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
Health officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief journalists.
Drone strike in Yemen leaves 12 dead
SANA, Yemen - A U.S. drone strike in southern Yemen killed at least nine suspected al-Qaida militants and three civilians Saturday, authorities said, as part of America’s ongoing strikes in the country against what it considers the terror network’s most dangerous local group.
A Yemeni military official said the early Saturday strike hit a vehicle carrying the militants in the Sawmaa area in the al-Bayda province as another car carrying civilians passed by.
A security official investigating the strike said one of the civilian survivors said a white SUV was hit and tossed some 20 yards away. The survivor said they fled the flying debris and took shelter while “explosions” continued for another 30 minutes.
Then, the survivor said, another drone fired near their car, killing one of his companions and wounding him.
A medical official said the strike had killed three civilians and wounded three.
Car bombing fatal to 2, Bahrainis say
MANAMA, Bahrain - Authorities in Bahrain say an apparent car bombing has killed two people and wounded one west of the capital, Manama.
A statement Saturday from the Interior Ministry said the blast happened in Mughsha, a village along a highway west of the capital.
Bahrain has been roiled by three years of unrest, with a Shiite-dominated opposition movement demanding greater political rights from the Sunni monarchy. The country is a small, Western-allied island kingdom off the coast of Saudi Arabia that is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
Separately, the ministry said a bomb thrown at security officials trying to stop a tire fire Saturday wounded three men.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 04/20/2014