Syria says officials entered illegally
UNITED NATIONS – The Syrian government Tuesday accused U.S. Sen. John McCain, former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and two others of entering the country illegally.
Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said in identical letters to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council circulated Tuesday that McCain, Kouchner, former Kuwaiti Parliament member Walid al-Tabtaba’i and former U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith are among the prominent figures and journalists who violated Syria’s sovereignty by entering the country without visas.
The letter said Syria “holds the governments of the states of which these persons are nationals fully responsible for the violations” of Syrian sovereignty.
Istanbul bombing kills 1 police officer
ISTANBUL – A female suicide bomber blew herself up at a police station in Istanbul on Tuesday, killing one policeman and wounding another, according to Turkish authorities.
Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin said the woman entered the police station and reported a missing wallet before detonating a bomb. The attack occurred in the Sultan Ahmet district, a popular tourist destination.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters the bomber was carrying two other bombs, which were safely defused.
“Police intervened immediately and prevented worse casualties,” he said.
It was the second attack on police in a week in Istanbul. On Thursday, police subdued a man after he threw grenades and fired a weapon at officers near the prime minister’s offices.
The leftist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C, said it carried out the Thursday attack.
Crews expand search for AirAsia debris
PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia – Strong currents forced Indonesia to expand the search area for the crashed AirAsia plane Tuesday, as rough seas and bad weather pushed debris and made it difficult to reach suspected chunks of the fuselage on the ocean floor.
Two more bodies were retrieved Tuesday, bringing the total to 39. But there are concerns that it will become harder to find the remaining corpses from Flight 8501, which crashed Dec. 28.
“Time is of the essence,” said the National Search and Rescue Agency’s director of operations, Suryadi B. Supriyadi. “But it seems like it is hard to beat the weather.”
The search operation will expand by about 70 square miles, search and rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said.
Soelistyo said an American ship, the USS Fort Worth, detected two large metal objects on the seabed at a depth of 92 feet and was attempting to identify them.
Associated Press
