Around the world
North America A 68-year-old diabetic woman survived two weeks stranded in the California desert on oranges, a pie, and rainwater collected in cups. Dianna Bedwell said that she and her husband, Cecil Knutson, 79, became lost after attempting to take a shortcut through the barren terrain. Knutson died before their car was spotted by a passer-by in an off-road vehicle. The couple, both retired school bus drivers from Anaheim, California, spent 15 days in the desert before Bedwell was rescued. Dave Sossaman, of the Los Coyotes police, said it appeared that the couple had attempted to set out for help several times, but each time turned back to their car. Bedwell was airlifted to hospital to be treated for dehydration. Asia/Oceania An all-night siege in an neighbourhood of Afghanistan’s capital ended with the deaths of four heavily armed Taliban attackers, though no civilians or security personnel were injured or killed, an Afghan official said. Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Ayub Salangi said that weapons had been seized, including a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, three automatic rifles and a hand grenade. Salangi said there were “no civilian or military casualties”. Kabul’s police chief General Abdul Rahman Rahimi, speaking outside the guesthouse that was the target of the six-hour assault, said: “Before reaching their target, all four attackers were killed.” The Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul is home to many embassies and foreign firms. The Taliban claimed responsibility. Europe Russia and Nato have begun rival military exercises in the latest sign of rising tensions in eastern and central Europe. About 250 aircraft and 12,000 servicemen will take part in Russian combat readiness drills over the Ural Mountains and Siberia in what the country’s Defence Ministry has called a “massive surprise inspection”. The exercises, launched on Tuesday and involving aviation and air defence forces in Russia’s central military district, began on the same day Nato started long-planned exercises in the Arctic. A Norwegian-led aviation exercise described as the “largest of its kind” will see 100 aircraft and 4000 servicemen take part in the “Arctic Challenge”. The two-week exercise will involve forces from Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands and the US, as well as non-Nato allies Finland, Sweden and Switzerland. Middle East Amnesty International accused the militant Hamas group of abducting, torturing and killing Palestinians during the war in the Gaza Strip last year, saying some of the actions amount to war crimes. The human rights watchdog detailed the abuses in a report entitled “Strangling Necks: Abduction, torture and summary killings of Palestinians by Hamas forces during the 2014 Gaza/Israel conflict”. The group said some 23 Palestinians were shot and killed and dozens more were arrested and tortured by Hamas, which rules Gaza. The Palestinians targeted were either political rivals of Hamas, including members of the Fatah Party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, or people the militant group had accused of co-operating with Israel, Amnesty said. The report highlighted a particularly brutal incident, which it said took place in Gaza on August 22. “Six men were publicly executed by Hamas forces outside al-Omari mosque . . . in front of hundreds of spectators, including children,” Amnesty said. Hamas had announced the men were suspected “collaborators” who had been sentenced to death in “revolutionary courts”, the rights group added. “The hooded men were dragged along the