Kenya: Purchaser of vehicle in bombing identified

Police identified the Kenyan man they believe bought the vehicle used in the suicide bombing of a Mombasa hotel crowded with Israelis but said Tuesday they didn’t know if he had a role in the attack.

Deputy Police Commission William Langat said authorities were looking for Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who allegedly bought a Toyota sedan that he traded in to buy the green Mitsubishi sport utility vehicle used in the attack.

Investigators said they did not know whether Nabhan was alive or whether he was one of at least two bombers believed to have died on Nov. 28 when the vehicle plowed into the Paradise Hotel, 12 miles north of Mombasa.

Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed in the explosion.

Moscow: Giant satellite plunges into South Pacific

The world’s largest communications satellite was sent plunging Tuesday into the Pacific Ocean two weeks after a Russian booster rocket failed to put it into the correct orbit, Russia’s space forces said.

European mission control used the Astra-1K’s engines to push it back into the Earth’s atmosphere and plunge it into the southern Pacific Ocean.

The French-made Astra-1K was rendered useless following its Nov. 26 launch on a Russian Proton rocket, when a Russian-made booster unit failed to push the satellite into its intended orbit.

Its owners later established partial control over the satellite but said it would never be able to fulfill its main mission of handling signals for radio, television, mobile telephones and the Internet.

Geneva: Red Cross launches aid appeal for 2003

The international Red Cross launched an appeal Tuesday for $644 million for next year, saying part of the money was needed to boost aid operations in Liberia, Ivory Coast and Colombia.

The appeal is a reduction of 8 percent, or $47.7 million, on the 2002 budget.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said relief work in Afghanistan would still take the largest slice of its money – $61.4 million. But it added that this represented a $42.5 million cut in spending on the country.

Most of the rest of the funds are needed to pay for ongoing relief work in Israel and the Palestinian areas, Russia’s Caucasus region, Congo and Sudan, the ICRC said.

The ICRC, like other aid agencies, struggles every year to persuade donors to meet the cost of its programs. Out of the $691 million the Red Cross sought for its work this year, it has so far received $397 million.

Montreal: Cuban survives 4 hours in plane’s landing gear

A Cuban man who hid in the wheel compartment of a DC-10 jet wrapped his shirt around heating pipes to survive temperatures of nearly 40 below zero and avoid falling out during the four-hour flight to Canada.

“I consider myself very lucky to have survived. Thank God,” the stowaway, in his 20s, said Monday evening after his first appearance before the refugee panel.

The man, who cannot be identified by name under a publication ban imposed by Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, has been ordered held until a hearing Friday.