LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY "The Americans would never give him a fair trial. Spain would." Manuel Tuero,
a Spanish lawyer who represents the wife of Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, a "ghost prisoner" who vanished in the CIA prison network. - Article, 1A2 U.S. men found dead in Hong Kong hotel
HONG KONG - Authorities are investigating the deaths of two Americans whose bodies were found at one of Hong Kong's most luxurious hotels, police and reports said Saturday.
Cleaning staff found the two men's bodies in a room at the Grand Hyatt hotel on Friday afternoon, a police spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of policy.
The cause of the deaths was not yet known, and an autopsy was expected to be carried out later Saturday, the spokesman said.
Police were not yet treating the deaths as suspicious, she said.
The spokesman confirmed both men were U.S. citizens, but said she did not know where they were from.
The five-star waterfront Grand Hyatt, where a standard harbor view room costs about $550 a night, is a favorite among Chinese and other state leaders when visiting the booming financial center of Hong Kong.
Rebels at festival shoot, kill 18 in India
NEW DELHI - Communist rebels opened fire on a crowd of revelers at a festival in eastern India on Saturday, killing a politician's son and 17 other people, police said.
About 25 Maoist guerrillas attacked the village festival in the remote state of Jharkhand, firing indiscriminately, local police chief Arun Kumar Singh told The Associated Press.
Among the dead was Anuplal Marandi, the son of the state's former chief minister, Babulal Marandi, he said.
The politician was thought to be on the rebel's hit list after leading a crackdown against them while in office, Singh said.
Some 14 people were killed in the attack and four others died later in a hospital. Three more people were wounded, he said. The rebels, who frequently target police and government officials, also threw a bomb into the crowd before fleeing.
Police have launched a manhunt and sealed the state's borders, Singh said.
Britain studies brain injuries from Iraq war
LONDON - The British government is conducting a survey of its soldiers to determine if those exposed to powerful explosions in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered mild traumatic brain injuries, the Ministry of Defense said Saturday.
The ministry said it has begun distributing questionnaires to British troops in both countries as part of a self-assessment program to see if they have symptoms such as memory loss, depression and anxiety.
The Guardian newspaper, which first reported the survey, said it followed concerns within the U.S. Army that up to 20 percent of its returning soldiers and Marines were suffering from these conditions.
The newspaper said Saturday that the condition has been designated by the Pentagon as one of the four "signature injuries" of the Iraq war.
A spokesman for Britain's Ministry of Defense said Saturday that it was working alongside a U.S. investigation of the condition, in part to determine how widespread it may be.
China plans $14.5 billion algae cleanup
BEIJING - China has announced a multibillion-dollar plan to clean up a severely polluted lake where an algae bloom forced the suspension of water supplies to millions of people this summer.
The $14.5 billion plan to clean up Lake Tai, in a densely populated area northwest of Shanghai, should take five years, said a statement dated Friday and posted on a government Web site of the nearby city of Taizhou.
The move comes amid mounting official urgency about curbing chronic pollution in China's rivers and lakes that has left millions of people without clean water and disrupted city water systems.
Lake Tai is one of a series of lakes where blooms of bluegreen algae blamed on pollution have disrupted water supplies this year. Some types of the algae can produce dangerous toxins.
The algae bloom on Lake Tai in June prompted the suspension of running water in and around the major city of Wuxi for six days, forcing as many as 5 million people to rely on bottled water.
Front Section, Pages 15 on 10/28/2007