Syrian Internet service down for 20 hours
BEIRUT – Internet service was restored in Syria on Wednesday, after a countrywide outage cut off the nation from the rest of the world for nearly 20 hours, state media said.
The state news agency SANA said a problem with a fiber-optics cable was to blame for the second nationwide outage since a two-day blackout in November.
There had been speculation that the regime pulled the plug, possibly as a cover for military actions in the deadly conflict, now in its third year. But no large-scale military offensives were reported Wednesday, and there were no immediate allegations of sabotage by the opposition.
Bangladesh collapse death toll tops 800
DHAKA, Bangladesh – Dozens of bodies recovered Wednesday from a collapsed garment factory building were so decomposed they were being sent to a lab for DNA identification, police said, as the death toll from Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster topped 800.
After protests, authorities also began disbursing salaries and other benefits to survivors of the collapse.
Police said 803 bodies had been recovered from the wreckage of the eight-story Rana Plaza building by late afternoon and more were expected as salvage work continued two weeks after the April 24 collapse.
Rodman asks N. Korea to free American
SEOUL, South Korea – Former NBA star Dennis Rodman is tapping his friendship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to ask for the release of a Korean-American man sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in the North.
“I’m calling on the Supreme Leader of North Korea or as I call him ‘Kim,’ to do me a solid and cut Kenneth Bae loose,” Rodman said on Twitter. He later called the tweet a direct response to a Seattle Times editorial that dared him to ask Kim for the release if the two are really buddies.
Rodman visited North Korea in February and sat next to Kim as they watched an exhibition basketball game. His trip came at a time of high tension between Pyongyang and Washington and was not endorsed by the U.S. State Department.
Bae is a tour operator who was arrested in North Korea in November.
Rival Anne Frank charities in dispute
AMSTERDAM – Two organizations bearing Anne Frank’s name are in a bitter dispute over the possession of the Frank family archive, in an echo of a court battle they fought in the 1990s about which one had the right to trademark the Holocaust victim’s name.
The conflict between the Basel, Switzerland-based Anne Frank Fund and the Amsterdam, Netherlands-based Anne Frank Foundation is in part a struggle to control the late Jewish teen’s legacy. But, with one side even comparing the other to Nazi Germany, it also threatens to damage both institutions’ reputations.
Associated Press
