Thailand

Laos deports American activists

The Laotian government released three of four U.S. activists detained after witnessing the surrender of Hmong rebels – Vietnam War-era allies of the United States – and deported them Monday to Thailand, one of the freed activists said.

Ed Szendrey of Oroville, Calif., who was released along with his wife, Georgie, and Hmong-American Nhia Yang, told The Associated Press he was elated at being freed but concerned for Hmong-American Sia Cher Vang, the group’s driver, who remained in jail.

The three were freed by Laotian authorities Monday afternoon in the capital, Vientiane, and escorted across the nearby border with Thailand by U.S. consular officials.

Laos Foreign Ministry spokesman Yong Chantalangsy said before their release that the three would be deported for the sake of good relations with the United States.

Thailand

U.S. retreating stance on North Korea

The United States has not set itself a deadline to decide whether to bring the issue of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program to the United Nations, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday.

Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice worked to minimize the impact of statements by a senior defense official, traveling with Rumsfeld, who had said earlier that a decision on taking North Korea to the U.N. could come within weeks.

“There have been no decisions with respect to that at all,” Rumsfeld told reporters after touring the Grand Palace in the Thai capital.

There had seemed to be a policy rift in the Bush administration over the weekend when Rice, speaking to reporters Sunday while traveling, said, “I think the idea that within weeks we’re going to decide one way or another is a little forward-leaning, I would say.”

Austria

Autopsies conducted on infants in freezer

Two infants whose bodies were found in a freezer at an apartment complex in southern Austria were alive at birth, authorities said after autopsies were performed Monday, eliminating the possibility they had been stillborn.

Two other newborns were found entombed in concrete-filled buckets at the apartment complex last week, but police said Sunday that autopsies could not be done on those bodies because they had deteriorated too much.

The two bodies examined Monday were found last week wrapped in plastic and stuffed into a chest freezer shared by tenants of the building, according to media reports, prompting a search that eventually turned up the other two corpses.

Authorities have detained the infants’ 32-year-old mother and her 38-year-old male companion on suspicion of murder in the slayings and disposals.