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9 feared dead in mid-air collision in NYC

NEW YORK, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- A sightseeing helicopter and a small plane collided Saturday over the Hudson River in New York, killing the nine people on board, officials said.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg said five Italian tourists and a pilot were on the helicopter operated by Liberty Harbor Sightseeing Tours, ABC News reported. A pilot, woman and child were on the Piper Saratoga, which was flying from Teterboro, N.J., to Ocean City, N.J.

"I'm sad to report that at 12:00 this afternoon there was an accident that we don't believe was survivable," Bloomberg said.

The mayor told reporters two bodies had been recovered by early afternoon, the news channel NY1 reported.

Eyewitnesses said both aircraft disappeared from sight quickly when they hit the water.

"It happened pretty fast. I looked over, I saw a piece of metal, I saw a helicopter, and the helicopter was just going down, and it was gone, and that was it," said Kelly Owen, who had come to New York to visit her daughter.

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Boats from New York and New Jersey responded quickly to the crash site.

A Liberty Harbor helicopter crashed in the Hudson in 2007, landing on pontoons that kept it above water. The passengers and pilot were rescued by boaters, receiving only minor injuries.


Indonesian police foil assassination plot

JAKARTA, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Police in Indonesia said Saturday they successfully foiled a plot to assassinate President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Police officials would not confirm reports that an unidentified individual killed during a police raid on a suspected Islamic militant hideout near Jakarta was Noordin Muhammad Top, a wanted terrorism suspect, The New York Times reported.

Terrorism expert Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group questioned news reports that identified Top as the individual killed in the separate 16-hour raid.

"What we do know is that the police intercepted this likely attack, and they get incredible kudos for that," Jones said.

Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri, Indonesia's national police chief, a second raid in the town of Bekasi left two unidentified suspects dead.

Danuri said, according to an accomplice, the assassination plot appeared to include the use of a truck laden with explosives that would be detonated at Top's residence.

The police official told the Times a truck filled with explosives was found during the police investigation into the plot.

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Landslide buries Indian villages; 30 dead

DEHRADUN, India, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- A landslide in the northern Indian province of Uttarakhand buried three mountain villages Saturday, killing at least 30 people, officials said.

At least 50 people were missing, the Indo-Asian News Service reported.

The slide occurred after hours of heavy rain, 5,000 feet above sea level on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. The villages are about 300 miles north of Dehradun, the provincial capital, in the Munsiyari area bordered by Nepal and Tibet.

Members of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police joined the hunt for the missing. A police official said 29 bodies had been found.

Efforts to find survivors and bodies have been slowed by the difficult terrain.


Iranian protesters face Tehran trials

TEHRAN, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- A French scholar at Isfahan University and an Iranian employee of the British embassy apologized Saturday for espionage, a news agency said.

Clotilde Reiss, 24, and Hossein Rassam, a political analyst, are among 100 people on trial for conspiring to overthrow the Iranian government, The New York Times reported. Iran charges recent protests against the presidential election were orchestrated by western countries.

The Fars news agency, a semiofficial organization, said Reiss and Rassam both apologized for passing information on Iranian politics to their embassies.

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"I realize this was a mistake," Reiss reportedly said. "I apologize to the court and the people of Iran and I hope they will forgive me."

Rassam said his job at the embassy includes assembling political information, but he said he had "regret" for passing it on.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Rassam should not have been charged, the Times said. Putting Reiss and Rassam on trial "only brings further discredit on the Iranian regime," he added.

Other defendants before the Revolutionary Court include prominent journalist Ahmad Zeydabadi and reformist figures such as Ali Tajernia, Hedayat Aqaei, Shahab Tabatabaei and Javad Emam also in the dock, Iran's Press TV said.

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