World

Iran votes in parliamentary runoff as rare shooting wounds 4

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranians voted Friday in the country's parliamentary runoff elections, a key poll that will decide how much power allies of moderate President Hassan Rouhani will have in the next legislature after the landmark nuclear deal with world powers.

Though Rouhani continues to have popular support after the deal, its promised economic effects have yet to trickle down to the Islamic Republic's 80 million people, something hard-liners have belabored in the time since.

Former SS Auschwitz guard apologizes at trial in Germany

DETMOLD, Germany — A 94-year-old former SS sergeant admitted in court Friday that he had served as an Auschwitz death camp guard, apologizing to Nazi Holocaust survivors looking on in a German courtroom that even though he was aware Jews were being gassed and their corpses burned, he did nothing to try to stop it.

Reinhold Hanning told the Detmold state court that he had never spoken about his wartime service in Auschwitz from January 1942 to June 1944, even to his family, but wanted to use his trial as an opportunity to set the record straight.

Norway oil-rig helicopter crash kills 13; flying ban issued

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A helicopter carrying Statoil workers from an offshore rig in the North Sea crashed Friday on an island off western Norway, killing all 13 people on board, rescuers said.

The Airbus EC-225 helicopter shattered into pieces as it slammed just after noon into the rocky shoreline of Turoey, a tiny island outside Bergen, Norway's second-largest city. It was heading to Bergen from Statoil's Gullfaks B oil field in the North Sea, 120 kilometers (74 miles) offshore.

North Korea sends another US citizen to prison

 

PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea on Friday sentenced a U.S. citizen of Korean heritage to 10 years in prison with hard labor after convicting him of espionage and subversion, the second American it has put behind bars this year.

Kim Dong Chul was sentenced after a brief trial in Pyongyang by North Korea's Supreme Court, which found him guilty of espionage and subversion under Articles 60 and 64 of the North's criminal code.

Rising violence kills over 200 in a week in Syria's Aleppo

DAMASCUS, Syria — The Syrian army and rebels unleashed deadly new attacks on each other Friday in Aleppo, with insurgents shelling a mosque during weekly prayers and government airstrikes hitting opposition neighborhoods in escalating bloodshed the U.N. decried as a "monstrous disregard for civilian lives by all parties."

Irish leaders end deadlock, make deal for new government

DUBLIN — Ireland's age-old political enemies struck a historic deal Friday night to create a fragile new government following an inconclusive election and two months of deadlock.

The potential three-year agreement between negotiators from the governing Fine Gael and the opposition Fianna Fail parties means it's likely that caretaker Prime Minister Enda Kenny, Ireland's leader since 2011, will be re-elected next week atop a minority Fine Gael government.

Egypt explorers hunt gold in the desert, following ancients

EASTERN DESERT, Egypt — Off the off-road tracks deep in Egypt's eastern desert, prospectors are ramping up the hunt for the treasure once revered by the Pharaohs as the "skin of the gods" — gold.

Essential for ancient artifacts like the famed burial mask of Tutankhamun and still highly desired in Middle Eastern culture today, gold has been mined in Egypt for millennia. But experts say the country is heavily underexplored and that modern technology now allows much deeper excavation of the ancient sites shown on Pharaonic treasure maps.

Mexican general gets 52 years for torturing, killing man

MEXICO CITY — A judge has sentenced a general in the Mexican army to 52½ years in prison for ordering the torture of a suspect, then having his body burned, Mexico's federal judiciary council said Thursday.

The sentence was among the longest ever against a senior army officer.

The council said the conviction came in a 2008 case in the northern state of Chihuahua. The judge also ordered the army to publicly apologize, clear the victim's name and pay his family damages.

South Korea: Suspected midrange North Korean missiles fail

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea attempted unsuccessfully to launch two suspected powerful intermediate-range missiles on Thursday, South Korean defense officials said, bringing the number of apparent failures in recent weeks to three.

The reported failures come ahead of a major North Korean ruling party meeting next week at which leader Kim Jong Un is believed to want to place his stamp more forcefully on a government he inherited after his dictator father's death in late 2011.

Casualties mount from bombardment in Syria's largest city

BEIRUT — Airstrikes and artillery killed more than 60 people in the past 24 hours in Aleppo, including dozens at a hospital in a rebel-held neighborhood, as Syria's largest city was turned once again into a major battleground in the civil war, officials said Thursday.

Aid agencies warn that Aleppo is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster with the collapse of a two-month cease-fire and stalled peace talks.