CHAMONIX, France – Dozens of tourists, including three children, were rescued Friday after being trapped overnight in cable cars dangling above the slopes of Mont Blanc in the Alps.
Their return to land ended an extraordinarily complex and vertiginous rescue effort over two days amid the spectacular but dangerous landscape of Western Europe’s tallest mountains.
The last passengers were brought down Friday morning after emergency workers managed to untangle cables that had jammed Thursday.
With the cables now straightened, the cable cars were able to resume their journey Friday, at very slow speeds and under close surveillance, and delivered the passengers to the nearest ground stations, Mayor Eric Fournier said.
The ordeal began Thursday afternoon, when cables on the Panoramic Mont Blanc cable car service got twisted, trapping 110 people in a string of cars at 3,800 yards altitude.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Facebook says it will allow postings of an iconic 1972 photo of a naked, screaming girl running from a napalm attack in Vietnam, after a Norwegian revolt against the tech giant.
Facebook originally deleted postings of the image by Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and others. Protests started last month after Facebook deleted the Pulitzer Prize-winning image by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut from a Norwegian author’s page, saying it violated its rules on nudity.
As others posted the image in protest, Facebook deleted those, too.
But on Friday, it said it would allow sharing of the photo, “because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance.”
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea said it conducted a “higher level” nuclear test explosion on Friday that will allow it to finally build an array of stronger, smaller and lighter nuclear weapons. It was the North’s fifth atomic test and the second in eight months.
South Korea’s president said the detonation, which Seoul estimated was the North’s biggest-ever in explosive yield, was an act of “fanatic recklessness” and a sign that leader Kim Jong Un “is spiraling out of control.”
North Korea’s boast of a technologically game-changing nuclear test defied both tough international sanctions and long-standing diplomatic pressure to curb its nuclear ambitions.
GENEVA – The United States and Russia early Saturday announced a breakthrough agreement on Syria that foresees a nationwide cease-fire starting next Monday, followed a week later by an unlikely new military partnership between the rival governments targeting the Islamic State and al-Qaida.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said shortly after midnight that the plan could reduce violence in Syria and lead to a long-sought political transition, ending more than five years of bloodshed. He called the deal a potential “turning point” in a conflict that has killed as many as 500,000 people, if complied with by Syria’s Russian-backed government and U.S.-supported rebels.
Associated Press
