The World in Brief

A man stands in water , flooding a street in Siofok, 102 kms southwest of Budapest, Hungary, Monday, Sept. 15, 2014, after three months’ amount of rain fell on the town on Sunday. (AP Photo/MTI, Szilard Koszticsak)
A man stands in water , flooding a street in Siofok, 102 kms southwest of Budapest, Hungary, Monday, Sept. 15, 2014, after three months’ amount of rain fell on the town on Sunday. (AP Photo/MTI, Szilard Koszticsak)

Snowden: NSA sweeps New Zealand data

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden said Monday that the agency is collecting mass surveillance data on New Zealanders through its XKeyscore program and has set up a facility in the South Pacific nation's largest city to tap into vast amounts of data.

Snowden talked by video link from Russia to hundreds of people at Auckland's Town Hall.

Shortly before he spoke, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key issued a statement saying New Zealand's spy agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau, has never undertaken mass surveillance of its people. Key said he declassified previously secret documents that proved his point.

"Regarding XKeyscore, we don't discuss the specific programs the GCSB may or may not use," Key said. "But the GCSB does not collect mass metadata on New Zealanders, therefore it is clearly not contributing such data to anything or anyone."

Snowden, however, said Key was parsing his words and that New Zealand agencies collect information for the NSA and then receive access to it.

"There are actually NSA facilities in New Zealand that the GCSB is aware of, and that means the prime minister is aware of," Snowden said. "And one of them is in Auckland."

5 to die for rapes, Afghan court agrees

KABUL, Afghanistan -- An Afghan appeals court confirmed death sentences Monday for five of the seven defendants in a robbery and rape case, despite their claims that their confessions were extracted through police violence.

For the other two defendants, the court found insufficient evidence to justify the death penalty, so it reduced their sentences to 20 years' imprisonment.

The seven men were accused of dressing in police uniforms and stopping a caravan of cars returning from a wedding in the Paghman district near Kabul, robbing the occupants and raping four of the women by the roadside.

The case against them rested on their confessions and on their identification by victims. But all seven men said they were severely beaten by police officers until they confessed and that the victims were told by the police whom to identify in a lineup.

Human Rights Watch said the police identification procedure was not a lineup but a "showup," in which the police indicated to the victims who the suspects were.

Uganda holds 19, cites plot, explosives

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Ugandan authorities are holding 19 people arrested in an apparent terror plot, officials said Monday as security agencies continued an operation to dismantle what they said was an al-Shabab cell plotting attacks in the East African country.

The security agencies arrested the 19 and seized explosives as well as bomb-making materials in a raid Saturday on a suspected terrorist cell in Uganda's capital, Kampala, said Polly Namaye, a Ugandan police spokesman.

"We are calling upon owners of businesses, especially entertainment places, to intensify their security," Namaye said.

All the suspects are from Somalia, and Ugandan police and intelligence officials are interrogating them, said Ugandan military spokesman Lt. Col. Paddy Ankunda.

The officials gave no more details, saying the operation is ongoing and that more people could be arrested.

The U.S. Embassy in Uganda said Monday that a possible terrorist attack had been disrupted. On Saturday, the embassy warned U.S. citizens to stay at home overnight because of an operation to foil a terror plot.

46 dead in Nigeria building collapse

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Rescue workers have found 46 bodies and rescued 130 survivors from a collapsed shopping mall and guesthouse at the campus of renowned Nigerian preacher T.B. Joshua's Synagogue Church of All Nations, the West African nation's emergency agency said Monday.

Joshua's church published a video purporting to show a plane flying low over the building four times before the structure collapsed Friday. He said at a church service Sunday that the building apparently was attacked by Islamic extremists who might have dropped a "chemical substance" from the aircraft.

But the spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency, Ibrahim Farinloye, said the collapse likely was caused by construction work that would have added two stories to the four-story structure without reinforcing its foundation.

The collapsed building housed a shopping mall and restaurants on the ground floor and rooms for accommodation above.

Church members initially tried to impede rescue workers, but that the problem was resolved Sunday night, said Farinloye, who added that the search for survivors would continue today.

-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports

A Section on 09/16/2014

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