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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 2005)
| Global update | Today Tuesday Wednesday o High: 49 High: 49 High: 51 Precip: 20% Precip: 10% Precip: 20% 18 killed at Spanish hostel by apparent gas leak TODOLELLA, Spain — Eighteen people gathered in a mountain hostel in eastern Spain for a birthday party died in their sleep from an apparent gas leak, officials said Sunday. The victims — ages 20 to 40 — were part of a larger group of about 50 people who had converged on the hostel for the party Saturday night. Low: 32 Low: 30 Low: 32 IN BRIEF Most went home. But some decided to stay and slept in one of several large rooms at the hostel. To keep themselves warm at night, they turned on a butane gas heater in the room, according to Valencia re gional emergency workers. An appar ent gas leak, or bad combustion from the heater, killed the revelers. Two other people who slept in a separate room survived, Todolella Mayor Alfredo Querol told the private Radio SER. The bodies were found by hostel workers Sunday afternoon. No de tails were released about how many of the dead were men or women. “The judicial police are there in vestigating but from what I could see on first glance there doesn’t seem to be any other cause than the bottle of gas,” Querol said. Distraught and weeping relatives and friends arrived late Sunday at a sports hall in the town where police and forensic experts told them what had happened. Civil Guards prevent ed journalists from entering the cen ter and cordoned off the single moun tain track to the hostel, about two miles outside the village. The bodies were to be taken to a hospital in the nearby provincial cap ital of Castellon for autopsies later Sunday, police at the scene said. Valencia’s regional president, Fran cisco Camps, who rushed to the town after hearing the news, said psychol ogists would be dispatched to the area to help the bereaved families. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Ro driguez Zapatero also sent a message of condolence. A funeral Mass was to be held Monday at the nearby town of Morelia. The hostel, housed in a restored 15th-century hermitage outside this tiny hamlet of 140 inhabitants, is fre quented by bikers, hikers and horse back riders. The Associated Press 22 Iraqi police officers dead after night attack on station BY JASON KEYSER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BAGHDAD, Iraq — Insurgents at tacked a police station south of Bagh dad under cover of darkness Sunday, killing 22 Iraqi police and soldiers, po lice said. Gunmen seized four Egypt ian technicians in Baghdad in the sec ond kidnapping of foreigners in the Iraqi capital within a week. Elsewhere, one U.S. soldier from Task Force Baghdad was killed and two others were wounded Sunday af ternoon in a roadside bombing north of the capital, the U.S. command said. No further details were released. Fourteen attackers also died in the clash that broke out about 10:30 p.m. in Mahawil, 50 miles south of Baghdad, police Capt. Muthana Khalid Ali said. The dead included five Iraqi national guardsmen and 17 policemen, he said. Earlier Sunday, the multinational command said two Iraqi national guard soldiers were killed and three more injured in a rebel ambush in the same area. Two rockets also exploded near Baghdad International Airport and a third slammed into an Iraqi national guard building in a western suburb. No casualties were reported. The attacks were the latest sign that insurgents are stepping up attacks against Iraq’s fledgling security forces, which the United States hopes can as sume a greater role in fighting the rebels once a newly elected government takes office. The latest attacks and kidnap pings raise new concerns about se curity following a brief downturn in violence after the Jan. 30 elections, when Iraqis chose a new National Assembly in the first nationwide balloting since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. A final tally is expected by Thurs day, but initial returns point to a land slide by Shiite Muslim candidates en dorsed by their clerics. Shiites are believed to comprise about 60 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people. On the other hand, many Sunni Arabs, estimated at 20 percent of the population and the core of the insur gency, are believed to have stayed home, either out of fear of rebel reprisal or because of a boycott call by Sunni clerics. The four Egyptians were seized early Sunday near the Mansour dis trict of western Baghdad, Egyptian and Iraqi officials said. They worked for Iraqna, a subsidiary of the Egyptian firm Orascom Telecommunications, which oper ates the mobile phone network in Baghdad and central Iraq. Six other Egyptians working for Iraqna were kidnapped in two separate incidents in September. All were ulti mately freed although Orascom said at the time that it was committed to continuing its work in Iraq. No group claimed responsibility for the latest abduction. On Friday, Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was kid napped by gunmen who blocked her car outside Baghdad University. Sgrena, 56, is a veteran reporter for the communist daily II Manifesto. Her colleagues appealed Sunday to her captors to free her, citing the jour nalist’s anti-American stance and say ing that holding her would damage the image of Iraq. “Her articles in II Manifesto have al ways expressed opposition to the occu pation war led by the United States,” her colleagues said in a statement to Al-Jazeera television. “Keeping her captive and hurting her would amount to seriously damaging the cause of Iraq before the eyes of the world. ” Israel eases prisoner restraint to help avert pre-summit crisis A/so, Condoleezza Rice arrives in the region to hold talks with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders BY JOSEF FEDERMAN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS JERUSALEM — Israel on Sunday backed off its long-standing refusal to release Palestinian prisoners accused of violence against Israelis, defusing a crisis that threatened to derail an up coming Mideast summit. The easing in the Israeli position came as Secretary of State Condoleez za Rice arrived in the region for sepa rate talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, in part to review the agenda for the summit. In a related development, the main stream Fatah movement declared Sun day that it would be prepared for a cease-fire with Israel. Fatah, headed by new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, declared that it was prepared “to be commit ted to comprehensive mutual cease firehi.tti? pCQupie^RaJe^dhW Jwl, of 1967,” referring to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Also, the statement said it served to confirm an earlier vow “not to target civilians in Israel by any means.” Palestinians hope for such a mutual declaration when Abbas meets Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik on Tliesday. The summit would be the first at that level in four years — a clear sign that tension and violence are dropping since Abbas succeeded the late Yasser Arafat last month. Abbas has made the fate of Palestin ian prisoners a top priority, and a large scale release would boost his efforts to end the Palestinian uprising. On her arrival for a two-day visit, Rice said she would push for progress from both sides. “This is a hopeful Jijne, bm it,is,a, time,also. Of, great, responsibility for all of us to make cer tain that we act on the words that we speak,” she said before meeting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Last week, Israeli leaders ap proved the release of 900 prisoners, none involved in violence, in a ges ture ahead of the summit. Palestin ian officials complained that the planned gesture did not go far enough, and the dispute overshadowed summit preparations. Late Saturday, top aides of Sharon and Abbas agreed to form a committee to study additional releases, including of prisoners involved in attacks. Nego tiators also made final an arrangement of conditional amnesty for Palestinian fugitives, they said. The fate of Palestinian prisoners is one of the most emotionally charged issues for the Palestinians. Israel holds more than 7,000 Palestinians prisoners, many of them arrested during the last four years of violence. In decades of conflict, many thou sands of Palestinians have spent time in Israeli custody.. The C7ertility Center j °f OREGON Women of the Philippines, Pacific Islands and of Asian Descent The Fertility Center of Oregon seeks women of specific ancestry to assist two local infertile couples in having families. Egg donors are compensated $2,500 for this simple procedure. Must be 21 to 31 years old. For more information call Christine at 541.302.2374. Pregnant? 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