A mass grave with the remains of 12 people was unearthed in an area long controlled by al-Qaida in Iraq, officials said Monday. Two of the decomposed bodies were beheaded, according to an official at Fallujah General Hospital, where the bodies were taken after their discovery on Sunday. Hospital officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to release details of the discovery, said some appeared to have been killed as recently as four months ago, and some of the deaths dated to 18 months ago.
A British teacher jailed for insulting Islam after allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad flew home Monday following a pardon by the president of Sudan, a British Embassy spokesman said. Gillian Gibbons was believed to be on an Emirates flight with a stopover in Dubai before heading to London. Embassy spokesman Omar Daair told The Associated Press that Gibbons has left Sudan. Gibbons’ conviction under Sudan’s Islamic Sharia law shocked Britons and many Muslims worldwide. It also inflamed passions among many Sudanese, some of whom called for her execution.
Drivers in much of the northeastern United States navigated a treacherous mix of rain, sleet and snow Monday as a storm blamed for at least 16 deaths slid through the region after pounding the Upper Midwest. Schools canceled or delayed classes from New York to Maine as the region’s first snowstorm of the season whipped up wind gusting to 40 mph. At the same time, a new storm system was wreaking havoc on the West Coast and is expected to give the Midwest a second blast of snow.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif began a last-ditch effort Monday to persuade fellow opposition leader Benazir Bhutto to join a boycott of parliamentary elections – but he suggested his party was ready to contest the vote if he fails. It was the first meeting between the two former premiers since they both returned from exile in recent weeks. The talks came hours after an election official rejected Sharif’s own candidacy for the Jan. 8 vote, a decision that could deprive him of the chance to become prime minister for a third time.
Humbled by his first electoral defeat ever, President Hugo Chavez said Monday he might have been too ambitious in asking voters to let him stand indefinitely for re-election and endorse a huge leap to a socialist state. “I understand and accept that the proposal I made was quite profound and intense,” he said after voters narrowly rejected the sweeping constitutional reforms by 51 percent to 49 percent. Opposition activists were ecstatic as the results were announced shortly after midnight – with 88 percent of the vote counted, the trend was declared irreversible by the elections council chief.
