In the News

Talk of military action as Iran nuclear standoff continues

JERUSALEM – Israel’s defense minister hinted Saturday that the Jewish state is preparing for military action to stop Iran’s nuclear program, but said international diplomacy must be the first course of action.

“Israel will not be able to accept an Iranian nuclear capability and it must have the capability to defend itself, with all that that implies, and this we are preparing,” Shaul Mofaz said.

His comments at an academic conference stopped short of overtly threatening a military strike but were likely to add to growing tensions with Iran.

Germany’s defense minister said in an interview published Saturday that he is hopeful of a diplomatic solution to the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program, but argued that “all options” should remain open.

French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France could respond with nuclear weapons against any state-sponsored terrorist attack.

Rescuers find bodies of two W.Va. miners

MELVILLE, W.Va. – Rescuers on Saturday found the bodies of two miners who disappeared after a conveyor belt caught fire deep inside a coal mine, bringing to 14 the number of West Virginia miners killed on the job in less than a month.

The bodies were found in an area of the mine where rescue teams had been battling the intense blaze for more than 40 hours. Rescuers could not enter that portion of the mine until the flames had been mostly extinguished and the tunnels cooled down.

The miners became separated Thursday evening as their 12-member crew tried to escape a conveyor belt fire at Aracoma Coal’s Alma No. 1 mine in Melville, about 60 miles southwest of Charleston. The rest of the crew and nine other miners working in a different section of the mine escaped unharmed.

Coldest winter in a quarter of a century grips Russia

MOSCOW – Russia’s severest cold in a quarter of a century, with temperatures in Moscow at minus 8 Saturday, has killed at least 40 people and strained the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, with residents piling on the blankets and heating bricks to keep warm.

The big freeze extended to neighboring countries, killing four people in Estonia, one in Moldova and knocking out power and delaying trains in Poland.

In Moscow, rescue workers found five homeless or drunk people dead, the city emergency medical service said, bringing the number of deaths to more than 20 in the capital during the six-day cold that saw temperatures drop to minus 24 Thursday -the coldest temperature on that date since 1927.

Nineteen people have been hospitalized with hypothermia, the service said.

Whale stranded in River Thames dies during rescue attempt

LONDON – The lost and distressed whale stranded in the River Thames died Saturday as rescue workers ferried it on a rusting salvage barge in an effort to release it in the open sea, an animal rights group said.

The 20-foot-long Northern bottlenose whale had been lifted onto a barge by rescuers and was being taken downriver toward the North Sea when it suffered convulsions and died, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said.

The whale struggled with the effects of being out of the water as it was ferried toward the Thames Estuary, officials said.

Swaddled in blankets on the barge, the marine mammal-watched by thousands in London as it spent two days swimming up the murky river past some of the capital’s most famous landmarks-had shown signs of increasing stress and stiffening muscles, an indicator it was in serious difficulty.