Blizzard sweeps through Colorado
DENVER, April 10 (UPI) -- Heavy snowfall closed roads, canceled flights, and left thousands without power across Colorado Sunday, KUSA-TV Denver reported.
The blizzard left at least 11,000 Xcel Energy customers without power. All flights out of Denver International Airport and Colorado Springs Airport were canceled.
Interstate 25 was closed between Colorado Springs and Denver, Interstate 70 was closed between Aurora and Limon, highway 85 was closed from Ault to the Wyoming line, and Colorado 93 was closed between Boulder and Golden.
Allison Morgan of the state corrections department said three prisons in the Denver area -- Denver Reception, Denver Women and Camp George West -- were closed to visitors in the first weather-related lockdown in the system's history.
Sharon, Bush may dispute West Bank housing
JERUSALEM, April 10 (UPI) -- Israel's plan to build 3,500 apartments on the West Bank is expected to complicate this week's talks between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush.
The Ha'aretz news service said Sharon left Sunday for a visit to the United States that will include a Monday meeting with the president at Bush's Texas ranch.
Bush told reporters last week Israel has a "clear obligations" on the West Bank settlements.
Israeli officials have denied any immediate plans for the apartments, with Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres telling U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney the plan is an old one.
But Ha'aretz cited senior officials in the Sharon administration who admit their views clash with the U.S. view of the road map to peace. They cite the "natural needs" of the West Bank settlements.
Bush is expected to urge Sharon to avoid expanding settlements and to take measures to allow Palestinians to move about more freely.
While in Washington Sharon is expected to meet with Cheney, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, various members of Congress and Jewish leaders.
Palestinians shell Israeli settlements
JERUSALEM, April 10 (UPI) -- Palestinians fired at least 74 mortar bombs at Gush Katif settlements in the Gaza Strip after soldiers killed three Palestinian teenagers.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said that Saturday afternoon teenagers ran towards an opening in the barrier along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, and were shot. Palestinian security forces arrested two who escaped and told the Israelis they admitted trying to smuggle weapons.
The shelling started Saturday evening some two hours after the three were killed.
The settlers reported 84 bombs were fired, but the army said some of the mortar bombs that were launched fell on the Palestinian side.
No person was hurt on the Israeli side but a horse was killed and houses wee damaged.
Israel Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz Sunday talked to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and demanded he send troops to the area from which mortars are launched to stop the shelling.
Japan lodges protest with Chinese
GUANGZHOU, China, April 10 (UPI) -- After some 3,000 Chinese people demonstrated against Japan in Guangzhou, China, Japan lodged a formal protest Sunday.
"We formally demanded China's apology and compensation," Japan's Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told reporters after meeting in Tokyo with Chinese Ambassador Wang Yi. Machimura added that Wang had not apologized, the New York Times reported.
The Sunday demonstration involved chanting, singing and the burning of several Japanese flags. It followed a Saturday protest in Beijing, during which several windows in the Japanese embassy were broken.
Japanese Ambassador Koreshige Anami also called on the Chinese government to take stronger measures to protect Japanese citizens in China, CNN reported.
The protests are against Japan's bid to become a permanent U.N. Security Council member and have been further fueled by how Japanese textbooks recount Japan's wartime record.
The textbooks, approved last week by Japan's Ministry of Education, play down such issues as wartime "comfort women," Asian women forced by the Japanese military to work as sex slaves, as well as Asians brought to Japan to work as forced laborers, the Times said.
Top Russian security general killed
MOSCOW, April 10 (UPI) -- The general who ran Moscow's security for years was assassinated in an ambush attack Sunday evening, Interfax news agency reported.
Three star Col. Gen. Anatoly Trofimov, a former head of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, for Moscow and the surrounding region, was killed when an unidentified gunman opened fire on his Grand Cherokee jeep in Moscow at 7:40 pm, sources in the city's interior department told Interfax.
A young woman was injured in the attack and has been hospitalized, the news agency said.
Trofimov was dismissed as head of the FSB branch for Moscow and the
Moscow region in 1996 during the rule of President Boris Yeltsin. He is the highest-ranking serving or retired Russian officer to have been murdered since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
