Canada: Avalanche kills 7; 3 are from U.S.

Seven backcountry skiers, including three from the United States, were killed Monday when an avalanche crashed down a mountainside in eastern British Columbia, officials said.

Authorities previously said eight people were killed, and all were Americans, but later changed the information. The names of the victims were not released.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Randy Brown said one of the victims was from Colorado and another was from California. No information was available on the third. The others killed in the avalanche were from Canada.

Brown said the dead were in a group of 10 or 11 people skiing together. One person was taken to hospital in Revelstoke.

The avalanche occurred on the Durrand Glacier, about 20 miles northeast of Revelstoke in the Canadian Rockies.

Netherlands: Former Serb president surrenders to tribunal

Serbia’s former president surrendered to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal Monday to face charges that he was complicit in a crackdown on ethnic Albanians and possibly to testify against Slobodan Milosevic.

Within hours of his arrival in the Netherlands, Milan Milutinovic was summoned from the prison in a suburb of The Hague to the tribunal’s courthouse for an hourlong meeting with the chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte.

During his presidency of Yugoslavia’s largest republic, Milutinovic was mostly a figurehead of Milosevic’s regime, and lost what little influence he had when the former Balk-ans strongman was ousted in October 2000.

But as a former member of Milosevic’s inner circle and his wartime defense council, Milutinovic is believed to have potentially incriminating evidence that U.N. prosecutors want aired in court.

Switzerland: Iraq comes under Olympic scrutiny

The IOC is investigating accusations that Saddam Hussein’s oldest son, the head of Iraq’s Olympic association, tortured and jailed athletes.

“We’re received the complaint and we’re dealing with it,” IOC ethics commission official Paquerette Girard Zappelli said in Lausanne. She said she couldn’t comment further while the inquiry was under way.

In December, Indict, a London-based human rights group, lodged a complaint demanding that the IOC expel the Iraqi National Olympic Committee. Citing witness statements by exiled Iraqi athletes and United Nations reports, Indict said the Iraqi committee was in violation of the IOC’s ethics code.

The group contended Odai Saddam Hussein once made a group of track athletes crawl on newly poured asphalt while they were beaten and ordered that some be thrown off a bridge.

It also alleged he ran a special prison for athletes who offended him.

Cuba: Elian Gonzalez’s father elected to parliament

More than 97 percent of Cuba’s voters elected all 609 candidates who ran uncontested for parliament, including the father of Elian Gonzalez, Cuba’s elections officials said Monday.

The Communist Party said the massive voter turnout showed “overwhelming proof of popular support for the nation, the revolution and socialism.”

Juan Miguel Gonzalez, father of Elian, the Cuban boy at the heart of the international child custody battle in 2000, was elected, as was folk singer Silvio Rodriguez.

Leading dissidents called the process a farce and had encouraged voters to protest by abstaining, annulling their ballots or leaving them blank.

Three percent of ballots were deposited blank, while less than 1 percent were spoiled. Blank or spoiled ballots can be, but are not necessarily always, a sign of protest.