Russia

Nation stages its first historic aircraft show

Historic warplanes buzzed over an airfield outside Moscow on Friday in Russia’s first vintage aircraft show, attracting aviation enthusiasts from several European nations, World War II veterans and thousands of spectators.

Aircrews from Austria, Belgium and the Czech Republic flew planes from the past century to the Monino airfield northeast of the capital for the Flying Legend air show marking Russia’s Air Force Day.

The three-day show features flights by about a dozen World War II and postwar aircraft, as well as aerobatic displays by modern Russian fighter jets.

JERUSALEM

Army chief: Israel could give up Golan Heights

Israel could give up all of the Golan Heights for peace with Syria without compromising security, the army chief said in an interview published Friday, undercutting the contention of successive governments that Israel needs to keep at least a slice of the plateau.

It was not clear whether Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, an outspoken chief of staff who has stirred controversy in the past, was expressing his personal view or whether Israel was sending out feelers to Syria.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s aides declined comment, and Syrian officials played down Yaalon’s remarks. Syria has said a complete withdrawal from the Golan was a prerequisite for a peace deal.

In the West Bank, a Palestinian gunman killed Shlomo Miller, 50, the security chief of the Israeli settlement of Itamar, in a roadside ambush. Guards then shot and killed the gunman.

Georgia

Cease-fire negotiated after 3 nights of gunfire

Negotiators agreed to a cease-fire Friday after three straight nights of gun and mortar fire in breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, a Georgian official said.

Meanwhile, Georgia’s parliament called Friday for suspending the mandate of Russian peacekeepers in the region, accusing Russia of taking sides as tensions have threatened to erupt into open conflict. Lawmakers want Western peacekeepers to replace the Russians.

South Ossetia won independence from Georgia in a war that killed hundreds in the early 1990s. The separatist region is now hoping to join Russia, while Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has vowed to peacefully restore his government’s control over the region.

India

84-year-old hangman called in for execution

An 84-year-old hangman, helped by his son and grandson, has been brought out of retirement to carry out the first execution in nine years in India, where the death penalty is reserved for “the rarest of rare cases.”

Dhananjay Chatterjee, 43, who is to be executed before dawn today, has been on death row since his 1991 conviction for raping and smothering a 14-year-old girl, Hetal Parekh, who lived in the apartment building where he worked as a security guard.

Hangman Nata Mullick performed the last hanging in West Bengal state on Aug. 21, 1991. That execution took place in another Calcutta jail and no one at the Alipora prison remembers the last time its gallows were used.

Nigeria

33 more bodies found in cult killing investigation

Investigators have found 33 more bodies in woodlands near where a secretive cult is believed to have carried out ritual killings, police said Friday in raising the death toll in the case to 83.

In last week’s initial raids on homes and two forests in southeastern Anambra state, police found 50 bodies — some without heads — and about 20 skulls. The bodies, several of which were mummified, had been left unburied in caskets lying in what have been dubbed the two “evil forests.”

Police paraded five bedraggled men before journalists Friday in Abuja, the national capital, and lined up 20 skulls that officials said were found hidden in domestic shrines linked to the Alusi Okija cult.

A police official said the men were among 31 priests arrested in connection with the killings.