SOUTH ASIA

THREE TRAINS CRASH IN PAKISTAN, KILLING AT LEAST 100

KARACHI, Pakistan – Three passenger trains crashed in southern Pakistan early today, killing at least 100 people and injuring hundreds more, officials said. State television reported more than 100 were feared dead.

The accident occurred at about 4 a.m. when a train sitting in a station near Ghotki, in southern Sindh province, was rear-ended by a second train, a senior controller at Pakistan Railways, Abdul Aziz, said. The collision caused several cars to derail and spill over onto another track, where they were struck by a third train, causing further derailment, he said.

“It is a very gruesome situation,” a local police chief, Agha Mohammed Tahir, said. He said 60 bodies had been recovered, and hundreds of people were injured. Chief Tahir said body parts were strewn across the site amid piles of twisted steel and other debris. Rescuers had to cut through metal to get to some of the injured, he said. He said at least 13 train cars derailed.

– Associated Press

EAST ASIA

RICE PRAISES SOUTH KOREAN INDUCEMENT TO NORTH

SEOUL, South Korea – Secretary of State Rice yesterday praised a South Korean proposal for massive energy aid to North Korea that enticed it to end a 13-month boycott of nuclear disarmament talks. South Korea’s energy proposal “gives an opportunity for the North Koreans to address questions of their energy needs,” Ms. Rice said at a news conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon during a visit to Seoul. Ms. Rice noted yesterday that the North’s energy needs were also addressed in an American proposal made at the last nuclear talks in June 2004 that she said “is still on the table.” Washington has promised diplomatic recognition and economic aid to the North only after it verifiably dismantles its nuclear weapons program. Ms. Rice also repeated calls for North Korea to return to the revived nuclear talks later this month prepared for substantive discussions on giving up its atomic arms. “The agreement of the North Koreans to come back to the talks is a very good step but only a first step,” she said. “We look forward to a strategic decision by the North Koreans to abandon their nuclear weapons.”

– Associated Press

PERSIAN GULF

PREMIER SAYS IRAQI TROOPS READY TO TAKE OVER IN SOME CITIES

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraqi troops are ready to take control of some cities as a first step toward sending home American and other foreign soldiers, the prime minister of Iraq said yesterday. But he rejected any timetable for a pullout.

Underscoring the ongoing security crisis, gunmen killed four Iraqi human rights activists in Baghdad, a car bomb killed at least three people in the northern city of Kirkuk, and an American soldier died of wounds suffered in a land mine explosion. Prime Minister al-Jaafari warned against setting a timetable for foreign troops to leave “at a time when we are not ready” to confront the insurgents. But he said security in many of Iraq’s 18 provinces – notably in the Shiite south and the Kurdish-controlled north – has improved so that Iraqi forces could assume the burden of maintaining order in cities there. “We can begin with the process of withdrawing multinational forces from these cities to outside the city as a first step that encourages setting a timetable for the withdrawal process,” Mr. al-Jaafari said at a news conference with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

DEFENDANT CONFESSES IN VAN GOGH MURDER TRIAL

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – The Muslim extremist on trial in the slaying of filmmaker Theo van Gogh confessed yesterday, saying he was driven by religious conviction. “I don’t feel your pain,” he told the victim’s mother. Mohammed Bouyeri stunned the courtroom when, in the final minutes of his two-day trial, he declared: “If I were released and would have the chance to do it again … I would do exactly the same thing.”

“What moved me to do what I did was purely my faith. … I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his prophet,” he said. Mr. Bouyeri, 27, faces life imprisonment in the November 2 killing of Van Gogh, who was shot, stabbed, and nearly beheaded on an Amsterdam street. A verdict is to be handed down this month. Mr. Bouyeri glanced at notes, paused between sentences, and chose his words carefully. Some spectators rose to their feet as he spoke, visibly stunned by his comments. At one point, he addressed the victim’s mother, Anneke, who was sitting in the public gallery. “I have to admit I don’t have any sympathy for you,” he said. “I can’t feel for you because I think you’re a nonbeliever.”

– Associated Press