Jerusalem: Cameraman killed in West Bank clash

Nazeh Darwazeh, a cameraman for Associated Press Television News, was often on the front lines, filming clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in the West Bank, where he met his death Saturday at age 43.

Darwazeh, above, was killed while filming a confrontation between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians throwing stones and firebombs. Witnesses said Darwazeh was shot by an Israeli soldier taking cover behind an armored vehicle in an alley. The military insisted there were also Palestinian gunmen in the alley.

On Saturday, Darwazeh’s body was carried through Nablus wrapped in a Palestinian flag to a funeral attended by about 4,000 people.

Vatican City: Ailing pope attends late-night Easter vigil

Pope John Paul II led a solemn candlelight vigil in the final hours before Easter Sunday, pushing forward with his tiring schedule of Holy Week ceremonies.

The fragile 82-year-old pontiff, who has trouble walking and suffers from symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, has scaled down his role in some services. But he attends all key ceremonies, including the vigil held in St. Peter’s Basilica that marks the time after Christ’s death but before his resurrection.

Assistants helped the pontiff into the darkened basilica late Saturday, pushing the wheeled chariot he uses to get around comfortably at services.

During Easter Mass this morning, the pontiff was to deliver his “Urbi et Orbi” message — Latin for “To the City and to the World.”

Egypt: Archaeologists find ancient necropolis

French archaeologists unearthed a necropolis filled with rock-hewn tombs that are more than 4,000 years old, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said Saturday.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said the necropolis near the pyramids of Saqqara, 15 miles south of Cairo, contained tombs from ancient Egypt’s Old Kingdom, which lasted from 2400 BC to 2100 BC.

The writings on one tomb identified it as belonging to Hau-Nefer, a priest who served in the mortuary temple of King Pepi I, Hosni said.

Egypt’s chief of antiquities said Hau-Nefer’s tomb was decorated with colored scenes featuring the tomb’s owner in different poses with deities and family. One well-preserved, colored limestone relief showed the priest with his wife and their 13 children, he said.

Hawass said the French team from the Institut Francais d’Archeologie Orientale also found 12 complete limestone statues of another priest, named Khnum-Hotep.

Brazil: Tourist ship sinks; at least 11 dead

A tourist schooner carrying 58 people on a day trip sank Saturday morning in a canal east of Rio de Janeiro, killing at least 11 people, local authorities said.

Police and fire brigade teams were searching for survivors inside and around the sunken vessel.

The bodies of 10 adults and one child who drowned in Itajuru canal were taken to the local medical institute while the injured were taken to hospitals in Cabo Frio, he said.

The schooner Tuna Galo was carrying passengers, mainly Brazilians, on a day trip to Parrot Island when it sank about 500 yards off the Cabo Frio coastline, 60 miles east of Rio de Janeiro.

Nigeria: 6 killed during election

Nigerian soldiers opened fire on young men at a polling station Saturday, killing six people, and a gang stuffed ballot boxes into the trunk of a car during presidential elections in this oil-rich, yet desperately poor nation.

Despite those and several other incidents, observers said the vote for president and 36 state governors in Africa’s most populous nation went smoothly.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo is seeking a second term, and seems likely to win after his ruling party swept legislative elections a week ago.