Air France pilots end strike without deal
PARIS -- Despite no deal in sight, Air France's main pilots union Sunday unilaterally ended a 14-day strike that grounded about half of the airline's flights, stranded passengers worldwide, cost tens of millions of dollars and led France's prime minister to decry a "selfish" walkout.
After a late-night, 15-hour negotiating session with management, leaders of the SNPL pilot union walked away with no accord but with the realization that the strike "is not an end in itself," union spokesman Antoine Amar said. In a later statement, the union said it was ending the strike "in the interests of the company and passengers."
The walkout, which began Sept. 15, was the longest in more than four decades initiated by pilots at Air France, union official Guillaume Schmid said. The 81-year-old company conducts about 1,500 flights each day, and last year it had 77.3 million passengers, making it one of Europe's biggest carriers.
Air France in a statement said service would "progressively" start returning to normal Tuesday -- meaning that flights already canceled between now and then won't be reinstated. The company hailed the end of the strike, saying it "will have been costly and damaging. It has only lasted too long."
Alexandre de Juniac, chairman and chief executive officer of parent company Air France-KLM, said management team members "are aware of the trauma that our customers, employees and partners just lived through," according to the statement. It said full service was likely to resume late this week.
Iran said to develop new cruise missile
TEHRAN, Iran -- A news agency in Iran is reporting that the Islamic Republic has built a new surface-to-surface cruise missile capable of being launched from an airplane.
The report Sunday by the semiofficial Fars news agency quotes Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the airspace department of the elite Revolutionary Guard, as saying the missile has a range of 435 miles.
Hajizadeh said the missile can be launched from land-based pads, naval vessels, aircraft, helicopters and drones.
Meanwhile, Iranian state television accused the BBC on Sunday of trying to steal "artistic, historic and cultural documents" from government archives in the Islamic Republic.
The BBC had no immediate comment on the claim, coming in a report on the Iranian broadcasting company's website, although Iran has a history of accusing the British broadcaster of operating as a cover for spies and dissidents.
The state television report said Iranian intelligence officials disrupted the purported plot by local dependents of the BBC.
"The hostile network of the BBC -- against the mores and regulations of media and international law -- attempted to steal historical documents from formal archive centers through its local dependents," the report read, citing a statement by Iran's intelligence department.
The TV report did not elaborate.
Earthquake in Peru kills 8, fells 15 homes
LIMA, Peru -- A shallow, magnitude-4.9 earthquake has killed at least eight people whose crudely constructed homes collapsed in a remote Andean village near Cuzco, a Peruvian civil defense official said Sunday.
Carlos Castro of Peru's Civil Defense agency reported the deaths from the Saturday night earthquake during an interview with RPP Radio on Sunday morning. The agency had earlier reported seven deaths on its website.
The moderate quake that hit Paruro centered just 5 miles underground had destroyed 15 homes and left 75 people homeless, according to the agency. It said five people were injured and that power was knocked out to the village.
Mayor Wilber Loaiza of the neighboring town of Yarisque said Paruro is a small farming town of about 1,000 inhabitants. It is a two-hour drive from Cuzco.
German police probe abuse of refugees
BERLIN -- Police are investigating accusations that security guards at an asylum center in western Germany repeatedly abused refugees physically and mentally.
A police spokesman said Sunday that police raided the center in Burbach near the city of Hagen and questioned security guards and refugees after a journalist received a DVD showing the abuse of an asylum-seeker by security guards.
Spokesman Ulrich Hanki said police also found a picture on a guard's cellphone showing a security officer pushing his foot against the neck of a handcuffed refugee on the floor.
Hanki said other refugees had come forward and reported further abuse and that all the guards, who belonged to a private security company, were withdrawn from the center.
-- COMPILED BY DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFF FROM WIRE REPORTS
A Section on 09/29/2014