Turkey premier to meet with Istanbul protesters
ANKARA, Turkey Turkeys prime minister will meet with a group of protesters occupying Istanbuls central Taksim Square this week, the deputy prime minister said Monday, as the government sought a way out of the impasse that has led to hundreds of protests in dozens of cities.
Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said, however, the government would no longer tolerate illegal acts, and implied that the occupation of Taksim and its accompanying Gezi Park would be done by the weekend.
The protests appeared on the wane, with the smallest number of demonstrators in the last 11 days gathering in Taksim on Monday night. The protesters occupying Gezi Park remain, however.Three people have died and more than 5,000 have been treated for injuries or the effects of tear gas during the protests. The government says 600 police officers also have been injured.
Iraq hit by wave of bomb attacks
BAGHDAD A wave of car bombings rocked central and northern Iraq on Monday, killing at least 57 people and extending the deadliest eruption of violence to hit the country in years.
Attackers initially targeted market-goers early in the morning, then turned their sights on police and army posts after sunset. Security forces scrambled to contain the violence, blocking a key road in central Iraq and imposing a curfew in the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Mosul after the blasts went off.
Killing in Iraq has spiked to levels not seen since 2008. The surge in bloodshed, which follows months of protests by the countrys Sunni Arab minority against the Shiite-led government, is raising fears that Iraq is heading for another bout of uncontrollable sectarian violence. The upsurge comes as foreign fighters are increasingly pouring into neighboring Syria, where a grueling civil war has taken on sectarian overtones similar to those that pushed Iraq to the brink of its own civil war in 2006 and 2007.
WWII bomber raised from English Channel
LONDON A British museum Monday successfully recovered a German bomber that had been shot down over the English Channel during World War II. The aircraft, nicknamed the Luftwaffes flying pencil because of its narrow fuselage, came down off the coast of Kent county in southeastern England more than 70 years ago during the Battle of Britain.
The rusty and damaged plane was lifted from depths of the channel with cables and is believed to be the most intact example of the German Dornier Do 17 bomber that has ever been found.
The museum had been trying to raise the relic for a few weeks, but the operation was delayed by strong winds and choppy waters.
In 2008, divers discovered the aircraft submerged in 50 feet of water.
Experts say the bomber is remarkably undamaged despite the passage of time.
10 women, many in 90s, escape limo fire
SAN FRANCISCO Ten women some in their 90s escaped unharmed from a limousine that caught fire in California a little more than a month after five nurses were killed while trapped inside a burning limousine on a nearby bridge.
The women were celebrating one of their 90th birthdays and were in the vehicle outside the birthday womans home where they had gathered shortly after 11 a.m. when white smoke began coming out of the partition between the drivers compartment and the passenger compartment, Mary Chapman, one of the passengers, said Monday.The limousine was idling, but the doors were open. Chapman, 63, said she got out and the other women some of whom relied on walkers and canes followed with help from each other and a caregiver.
Associated Press
