Around the world
North America Six climbers on Mt Rainier likely fell 1000m to their deaths in what would be among the worst alpine accidents ever on the iconic Washington state mountain. A helicopter crew spotted camping and climbing gear in the avalancheprone area. Signals from avalanche beacons were detected buried in the snow at the top of the Carbon Glacier at 2895m. It is believed the group fell 1000m from their last known position of 3900m on Liberty Ridge, Mt Rainier National Park spokeswoman Patricia Wold said. The danger of recovering the bodies of the two guides and four climbers from their last known location is too great. ‘‘People are very understanding that we cannot risk another life at this point,’’ Wold said. Continuous ice and rock fall make the avalanche-prone area too dangerous for rescuers. The area will be checked by air in the coming weeks and months, she said. It is one of the worst accidents on Rainier since 1981, when 11 people were killed by a massive ice fall on the Ingraham Glacier. It’s unclear whether the climbers were moving or camping at the time of the accident, Wold said. Latin America A onetime rural schoolteacher who became a rebel commander during El Salvador’s long civil war was sworn in as President yesterday, the first former guerrilla to lead the Central American nation. Salvador Sanchez Ceren, 69, began his fiveyear term promising ‘‘honour, austerity, efficiency and transparency’’ at the inauguration ceremony attended by 13 heads of state or government. Sanchez Ceren’s Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front battled US-backed governments during a 12-year conflict in which about 76,000 people died. The Front became a political party after peace accords in 1992. He alluded to that struggle, saying his Government is possible ‘‘only because of the work of our heroes and martyrs . . . visionary people who gave their lives and dreamed of a country with democracy’’. Brazil has delivered parts of one of the costliest infrastructure projects built ahead of the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro. President Dilma Rouseff rode a bus to mark yesterday’s official opening of a US$700 million ($825 million) bus corridor for quickly moving people between the airport and subway stations in the western part of the city. None of Rio’s subway lines go to the international airport. The Transcarioca bus system is a 39km line with dedicated lanes for buses that are expected to carry 320,000 passengers a day. While the line is now open, not all of its bus stations have been completed. Asia/Oceania Seven overdue bushwalkers have managed to call a relative to say they are safe after a chilly night huddled in a cave in the Blue Mountains. Police resumed their search at first light for the five men and two women, aged 27 to 69, who failed to return from a hike in Katoomba on Sunday. ‘‘We have now been in touch with that group of walkers. They are all safe and well, there’s no injuries reported to us and they have spent the night huddled together in a cave down there in the bush,’’ Blue Mountains Inspector Ken Shack-Evans told ABC radio. Europe Peter Sunde, the co-founder of the file-sharing site The Pirate Bay has been arrested in Sweden. The Swedish newspaper Expressen reports that Sunde was arrested at a farm in Skane in southern Sweden and taken into custody by heavily armed police. Caroline Ekeus from the Swedish police department has told the publication that Sunde is in custody after a warrant for his arrest was issued by Interpol. Sunde has been on the run for two years after being sentenced to eight months’ jail and fined for copyright violations. Pirate Bay is a popular peer-to-peer file sharing website which uses the BitTorrent protocol to download music, film and television programmes. Middle East The crown prince of the oil-rich Mideast emirate of Abu Dhabi and other international donors committed a combined US$80 million yesterday to fund the conservation of tigers and other wild cats whose survival is under threat. The donors announced the 10-year funding effort, a partnership with New York-based cat conservation organisation Panthera, after a private signing ceremony in the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi. Panthera’s founder and chairman, mining investor Thomas Kaplan, described crown prince Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan as ‘‘a catalyst’’ for accelerating the wider funding effort that he hopes will attract more donors from around the world. Other backers are Jho Low, CEO of Hong Kongbased investment firm Jynwel Capital, businessman Hemendra Kothari, who chairs DSP Blackrock India and India’s Wildlife Conservation Trust, and Kaplan and his wife Daphne Recanati Kaplan. Each person or family is committing US$20 million over a decade. The funds will aid antipoaching efforts and land purchases to create safe corridors for the animals. The trial of Australian journalist Peter Greste and his two Al Jazeera colleagues has been adjourned yet again by an Egyptian court. It is expected to resume on Thursday. Greste, Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy appeared in a Cairo court yesterday, but there was little progress in the case, his Brisbane-based parents Lois and Juris said. Al Jazeera reported defence lawyers cross-examined members of the technical committee on which the Egyptian prosecution had relied in charging the journalists. The media organisation said the members could not recall a single example of what they believed was fabricated coverage from the Al Jazeera team or on how they had endangered Egypt’s national security. This was the 11th hearing for the three men. They are accused of being part of a terrorist group and airing falsified footage intended to damage Egyptian national security. Africa A bomb attack targeting fans at a soccer match in Nigeria’s restive northeast has killed at least 40 people, a police officer says. ‘‘There has been a bomb explosion at a football field this evening and so far more than 40 people have been killed,’’ said the officer in the town of Mubi, which has seen previous attacks by Boko Haram Islamists. Mubi is located in Adamawa state, one of three in the northeast which has been under a state of emergency for more than a year. Sudan’s Foreign Ministry yesterday repudiated a suggestion that the Government would order the release of Meriam Ibrahim, the mother sentenced to death for apostasy, warning that only the country’s courts could order her freedom. Western nations have expressed outrage that Ibrahim, who gave birth to her daughter Maya in prison last week, had been convicted of changing her faith from Islam to Christianity. Sudanese officials suggested on Sunday that the 27-year-old was to be released and that her death sentence would be annulled. But Abu Bakr al-Sideeg, a spokesman for the ministry in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, said yesterday that only the courts had such powers.