Spain

Official: Madrid bombers planned more attacks

Islamic militants blamed for last year’s commuter train bombings in Madrid were plotting more bloodshed — a string of suicide attacks in the months after the March 11 massacre, Spain’s counterterrorism director said Thursday.

Fernando Reinares, the counterterrorism chief, said the militants most likely to have carried out such suicide attacks in Spain — which would have been the first ever in Western Europe — were seven men who blew themselves up April 3 as special forces moved in to arrest them.

The train bombings killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500.

The seven men who died in Leganes, a town outside Madrid, included suspected ringleaders of the train strikes, which were claimed in videotapes by militants who said they acted on behalf of al-Qaida in revenge for Spain’s troop presence in Iraq.

A total of 74 people have been arrested in the Madrid bombings, of which 22 have been jailed on charges of mass murder or belonging to terrorist groups.

Tokyo

Prosecutors arrest Japanese rail tycoon

Billionaire Japanese developer Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, once listed by Forbes as the world’s richest man, was arrested Thursday over allegations of insider trading and falsifying financial statements at his company.

Tsutsumi, 70, owns a major stake in Kokudo Corp., which controls Seibu Railway and its 85 subsidiaries. He also owns Prince Hotels Inc., the Seibu Lions professional baseball team and Seibu Construction Ltd.

He was arrested on suspicion of violating the securities and exchange law, the Tokyo District Prosecutors’ Office said.

Prosecutors took Tsutsumi to a Tokyo detention center for questioning.

Prosecutors also raided Seibu Railway’s offices to gather evidence on whether Tsutsumi and other executives falsified financial statements on the company’s stock.

If convicted, Tsutsumi could face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $47,600 for falsifying financial statements, or three years in prison and a fine of up to $28,600 for insider trading.

South Korea

N. Korea seeks direct talks with Americans

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a Chinese envoy last week his country would resume negotiations over its nuclear weapons only if it received assurances that the United States had no hostile intent and a promise that its negotiators could talk directly to the Americans, according to diplomats here.

Kim was said to be particularly miffed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s recent characterization of North Korea as an “outpost of tyranny” and was demanding an explanation and apology.

In a statement Thursday, North Korea also said that it no longer felt bound by a 1999 moratorium on missile testing because of the U.S. attitude.

The North Koreans’ demands and rhetoric could make it difficult to resurrect what had once been an ongoing series of talks in Beijing involving six nations, the United States among them.

Vatican City

Pope improving, could leave hospital by Easter

Pope John Paul II may be out of the hospital in three weeks and in time for Easter, his spokesman said in a cautious declaration Thursday, stressing that the frail pontiff’s health continues to improve as he leads the Roman Catholic Church from his hospital room.

The Vatican said John Paul was eager to leave the hospital but accepted his doctors’ advice not to rush his discharge.

A week after the 84-year-old pope was taken to the hospital after his second breathing crisis in a month, spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls would offer no firm prediction of when John Paul would return to the Vatican, confirm any of his plans for Easter or say with certainty whether he will participate in noon prayers this Sunday.

In line, however, with Vatican efforts to show John Paul is in command, Navarro-Valls said the pope had been receiving several top churchmen “with whom he daily follows the activity of the Holy See and the life of the church.”

London

Research shows need for newborn care

More than 10,000 newborns die every day in poor countries, and more than 7,000 of them could be saved by simple, cheap and deliverable care, according to research announced Thursday.

While global attention has focused on improving the health of mothers and children in the developing world, the fate of the newborn has fallen through the gap, according to analysis papers to be published in coming weeks in The Lancet medical journal.

Almost 40 percent — 4 million — of the annual 10 million deaths of children under age 5 occur in the first month of life. That’s more than the number of people who die of AIDS each year, and experts say it’s an “unconscionable” statistic for the 21st century.

Nearly 3 million of those babies could be saved by such simple interventions as tetanus shots, breast-feeding, sanitary conditions during delivery and antibiotics, as well as basic hospital emergency services, such as Caesarean sections and blood transfusions, according to the research.

The main causes of newborn death are premature birth, infection, diarrhea and suffocation.

Beijing

China lashes back at U.S. on human rights

China issued a tit-for-tat report card Thursday on human rights in the United States that lambasted the Pentagon for “wanton slaughters” abroad, belittled American elections as awash in special-interest cash and accused U.S. courts of deep-seated racial bias.

The government report, which portrayed the United States as gun-crazed and unfair to minorities, came three days after the State Department released its annual report on human rights abuses in countries around the world, including China.

It marked the sixth straight year that China has countered the American report with one of its own, but this year’s was particularly noteworthy because it condemned the United States for abuses by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The report urged the United States to “reflect on its erroneous behavior.”