Tokyo: Remains from N. Korea may be Americans’

Human remains recently unearthed in North Korea and believed to be those of seven American soldiers missing in action from the Korea War were released to the United States on Tuesday.

A bugler blew “Taps” as the caskets, draped in powder blue United Nations flags, were carried by full-dress military honor guards under a full moon and into a hangar at Yokota Air Base on the outskirts of Tokyo.

A U.S. Air Force cargo plane picked up the remains in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, earlier in the day. Today, they are scheduled to be flown to the U.S. Army’s Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii for forensic examination.

Afghanistan: Investigation planned on mass grave site

The Afghan government will send an investigative team to the site of a reported mass grave of hundreds of captured Taliban fighters suffocated in shipping containers in last fall’s war, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

“It is not something that one can ignore,” said ministry spokesman Omar Samad.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan, meanwhile, said its investigation of the alleged mass killing was suspended earlier this year until a program could be devised to protect eyewitnesses against reprisals.

Forces of the anti-Taliban northern alliance were allegedly responsible for the deaths specifically Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum’s militia, which worked closely with U.S. special forces advisers in the war.

Northern alliance leaders now hold some of the most powerful positions in the post-Taliban government in Kabul.

Iraq: Terrorist’s death confirmed as suicide

Iraq confirmed Abu Nidal’s death, saying Tuesday that the feared Palestinian terrorist leader had committed suicide.

In Baghdad’s first official confirmation of his death, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told reporters that Abu Nidal had killed himself.

“Yes, I confirm his suicide and an official will give you full details on Wednesday,” Aziz said.

On Monday, two senior Palestinian officials said Abu Nidal a feared terrorist who targeted Israel, Palestinian Liberation Organization figures and Arab officials for associating with Israelis had been found dead of gunshot wounds three days earlier in his Baghdad house.

The Palestinian officials suggested Abu Nidal had committed suicide, but did not explain how he could have shot himself several times. His death raised suspicions that he may have been assassinated by his Iraqi patrons or Palestinian enemies.

Moscow: Building collapse blamed on gas leak

An explosion late Tuesday destroyed part of a residential building in the north of Moscow, killing at least one person and leaving a 45-foot-wide hole. Emergency officials feared up to 15 people could be trapped in the wreckage.

Moscow police spokesman Valery Gribakin said the blast killed one person and injured three. He said police believed the most likely cause of the explosion was a natural gas leak on the second floor.

Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu echoed that theory, calling a gas leak the most probable cause, the Interfax news agency reported.

Shoigu said that four people were pulled alive from the ruins, Interfax reported. The ITAR-Tass news agency, however, said that eight people were pulled out, including a woman with burns over 80 percent of her body and three others who were seriously injured.

About 15 more people could be caught in the ruins, Shoigu said. ITAR-Tass said about 40 apartments had been destroyed.