Afghan cartoon-riot death toll reaches 11
KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Four Muslim protesters in Afghanistan were shot by police Wednesday at a violent protest against a series of cartoons that depict the Prophet Mohammed.
Police opened fire when the chanting mob of 400 people approached a U.S. military base in the town of Qalat, setting fire to three fuel tankers and a school along the way, the BBC reported.
The deaths bring the number of Afghans killed in the cartoon protest to 11 in the last week, The Telegraph said.
Local police chief Abdul Bari said police originally started firing over the heads of the crowd, but were forced to open fire when the throng kept advancing.
At least 20 people were injured in the demonstration.
The cartoons depicting Mohammed wearing a bomb-shaped turban first appeared in a Danish newspaper last year, and have since been reprinted by publications in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, spawning attacks on their embassies in Muslim countries.
Report: London bombers listened to Hamza
LONDON, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Three of the suicide bombers who struck London's transit system in July attended speeches by newly convicted radical imam Abu Hamza al-Masri.
The Times of London said it had learned the three had attended lectures by Hamza at his North London mosque, where he taught that Muslims were obliged to kill non-believers to defend Islam.
The link between Hamza, 47, and the bombers, who killed 52 people and themselves, raises a possible explanation for the timing of the attacks.
On the morning of July 7, Hamza made his first court appearance on charge of inciting violence, but his case was postponed for six months. Later that day, the bombers struck.
His trial resumed last month and ended last week when a jury of seven men and five women returned unanimous guilty verdicts on 11 of 15 charges.
The cleric was sentenced to seven years in prison. The newspaper said Hamza is likely to be extradited to the United States where he faces terror charges, including conspiracy to take hostages.
Injured soldier told to pay for body armor
CHARLESTON, W.Va., Feb. 8 (UPI) -- The Pentagon is being challenged for demanding a West Virginia Army officer who was wounded in Iraq pay $700 for his damaged body armor.
The state's two Democratic senators, Jay Rockefeller and Robert Byrd, raised the issue of 1st Lt. William "Eddie" Rebrook IV with the Pentagon and within the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette reported.
When the news broke after Rebrook's medical discharge from Fort Hood, Texas, last week, more than 200 people from across the country sent him donations totaling $5,700 in a show of support. However, the 25-year-old said he wouldn't keep the money, but rather donate it to a Louisiana woman who lost her home in Hurricane Katrina. He said the woman's son helped save his life in Iraq.
Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, said he would follow-up on why Rebrook was billed.
"That is a very unusual story," Schoomaker said. "I have no idea why we would ever do something like that."
McDonald's ups french fry fat estimate
OAK BROOK, Ill., Feb. 8 (UPI) -- McDonald's french fries contain a third more dangerous trans fats than previously disclosed, reports said Wednesday.
CNN, citing a report in The Financial Times, said McDonald's Corp. increased its trans fat estimate to 8 grams in a larger order of french fries.
McDonald's Cathy Kapica told the newspaper new testing resulted in the hike from 6 grams, information that "promptly" was posted on McDonald's Web site.
"It makes it harder to trust McDonald's if they suddenly have strikingly different (trans fat) numbers," Michael Jackson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest told the newspaper.
Trans fats, created when hydrogen is added to extend vegetable oil shelf life, can increase so-called "bad" cholesterol and heart attack risk, the Food and Drug Administration says.
McDonald's, which promised to halve french fry trans fats in 2002, settled a suit in 2005 claiming it broke its promise.
The fast-food chain agreed to donate $7 million to the American Heart Association and spend $1.5 million notifying customers it had not changed its oil, CNN reported.
Second ferry decided not to turn back
SAFAGA, Egypt, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- The captain of a sister ship to the Egyptian ferry that caught fire and sank said he rejected a radio call for help to avoid a second disaster, reports said.
The al-Salam Boccaccio 98 caught fire Friday shortly after leaving the Saudi port of Duba for the 120-mile Red Sea journey to the Egyptian port of Safaga. About 1,000 of the 1,400 people on board died.
"I took the decision not to turn around to protect the lives of the 1,800 passengers on board the Saint Catherine," Salah Jomaa told Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram.
Jomaa said an official with the ship's owner, El Salam Maritime Transport Co., told him not to turn back "to avoid a second catastrophe" given "bad" weather.
However, Andrew Linington of the National Union of Marine, Aviation and Shipping Transport Officers said the weather was not that extreme.
"As well as the legal obligation, there is also a moral obligation ... to go to the aid of those in distress," Linington told the Times of London.
