Mexico

6 prison workers slain

The bullet-riddled bodies of six prison workers were recovered Thursday outside their lockup in Matamoros, following a federal crackdown against drug gangs at lockups across the nation.

Police sealed off approaches to the prison across the border from Brownsville, Texas, and army troops were ordered to guard the facility.

Federal Atty. Gen. Rafael Macedo de la Concha blamed the killings on organized crime, while Interior Secretary Santiago Creel suggested the attack was linked to the crackdown at the La Palma prison.

Authorities said gunmen apparently ambushed the men as they left the high-security prison when their work shifts ended early Thursday.

The victims included a computer systems technician, two electrical technicians, a guard commander and two drivers from the guard force.

Afghanistan

Warlord escapes suicide bomb attack

Afghan warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum escaped unhurt Thursday from a suicide bomb attack that injured more than 20 people gathered for prayers in his northern hometown of Sheberghan.

Dostum is an Uzbek militia leader who also ran for president last year and helped oust the Taliban in 2001.

The incident shook residents of a city that has been spared such attacks until now.

A spokesman for the ousted Taliban government said it carried out the attack, wire services reported. The claim could not be verified. Dostum also has a bitter rivalry with northern Afghan warlord Atta Mohammed.

Brazil

Mother gives birth to 16-pound baby

A woman in northeastern Brazil has given birth to what one doctor called a “giant baby,” a boy weighing 16.7 pounds.

Francisca Ramos dos Santos, 38, gave birth to the healthy boy named Ademilton, above, on Tuesday at a hospital in Salvador, 900 miles northeast of Sao Paulo. He was the largest baby born at the Albert Sabin Maternity Hospital in its 12-year history, the hospital said.

“Obviously the baby was born by Caesarean section,” hospital director Rita Leal said. “Both mother and baby are doing just fine.”

Ademilton “could truly be considered a giant baby, for he was born weighing what a 6-month-old-baby normally weighs,” pediatrician Luiz Sena Azul said.

Santos has four other children — ages 9, 12, 14 and 15 — who were born weighing between 7.7 pounds and 11 pounds.

“She knew Ademilton would be a big baby, but not this big,” Leal said. “She, her husband and the hospital staff were caught by surprise.”

The average weight for newborns in Brazil is 7.7 pounds for boys and 6.6 pounds for girls.

Vietnam

WHO warns of another bird flu outbreak

Vietnam on Friday confirmed the seventh human death from bird flu in three weeks and neighboring Thailand recorded its first case among poultry this year as health experts expressed concern about a possible repeat of last year’s devastating outbreak.

Outbreaks among poultry have been reported nationwide in Vietnam, and health experts say the pattern looks similar to last year, when the virus spread rapidly just before the Lunar New Year holiday, or Tet.

It quickly appeared in nine other Asian countries, killing or forcing the slaughter of more than 100 million birds and jumping from poultry to people in Vietnam and Thailand, where 26 and 12 people died respectively.

“It has a higher fatality rate than the Ebola virus,” said Hans Troedsson, WHO representative in Vietnam, where more than 70 percent of those infected have died.

WHO and other health experts have expressed concern that avian influenza could evolve into the next global pandemic — killing millions worldwide — if the virus mutates and human-to-human transmission occurs.

Gaza Strip

Palestinian police to deploy on border

The planned deployment of Palestinian forces on the Gaza-Israel frontier could be a first step toward a wider return of Palestinians’ security control in their areas of Gaza and the West Bank — the situation before fighting broke out with Israel in 2000, the Palestinian foreign minister said Thursday.

Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath made the assessment after Israel and the Palestinians resumed security coordination, agreeing on a Palestinian plan aimed at preventing rockets from Gaza into Israel.

Palestinian officials said about 1,000 police would be positioned, starting today, in the areas of northern Gaza where militants have fired dozens of rockets at Israeli communities just beyond the fence. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz approved the deployment.

The prospect of Palestinian police taking action to rein in militants quelled calls in Israel for immediate military action to stop the rocket fire.

A period of calm could lead to peace negotiations, starting with coordination of Israel’s planned pullout from Gaza in the summer.