The World in Brief

In this photo provided by the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, emergency teams head to the scene of an AN-148 plane crash near the village of Stepanovskoye on Monday.
In this photo provided by the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, emergency teams head to the scene of an AN-148 plane crash near the village of Stepanovskoye on Monday.

Russians search for jet crash victims

MOSCOW -- Wading through knee-deep snow, hundreds of emergency workers searched a vast field near Moscow on Monday for remains of the 71 victims from the crash of a Russian airliner, and aviation experts began examining the jet's two flight recorders.

Investigators quickly ruled out a terrorist attack in Sunday's crash of the An-148 regional jet bound for Orsk in the southern Urals. The air disaster has reignited questions, however, about the twin-engine plane that was developed jointly by Russia and Ukraine.

The model has a spotty safety record, with one previous crash and a string of major incidents in which pilots struggled to land safely. The carrier, Saratov Airlines, has grounded several other An-148s in its fleet pending the crash investigation.

The Investigative Committee said that, before the crash, the plane was intact and there had been no fire on board.

The plane's fuel tanks exploded on impact, gouging a deep crater and scattering wreckage across 74 acres, according to the Emergencies Ministry, which used drones to direct the search.

Pakistan will pay for attack, India says

SRINAGAR, India -- India's defense minister said Monday that gunmen belonging to the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed were behind a weekend attack on an army camp in Indian-controlled Kashmir, and he warned Islamabad that it "would pay for this misadventure."

Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters in Jammu, the site of the attack, that New Delhi would present Pakistan with evidence of the involvement of the outlawed militant group and its leader Masood Azhar, who "derived support" from Pakistan.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it rejected all "insinuations" from Indian officials and media, adding that "We are confident that the world community would take due cognisance of India's smear campaign against Pakistan, and the deliberate creation of war hysteria."

At least three armed men attacked the Sunjuwan army camp at dawn Saturday and fought Indian troops for over 48 hours while holed up in the residential area of the camp. The attack left five soldiers and one civilian dead and 11 others injured.

In 2016, India blamed the same group for an attack on another army camp in Indian-held Kashmir that left 17 soldiers dead.

Cambodia expels 'pornographic' dancers

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Seven Westerners arrested last month over accusations of posting pornographic photos on social media of themselves engaged in sexually suggestive dancing have been deported from Cambodia, a court official said Monday.

Yim Srang, a court spokesman in the northwestern province of Siem Reap, said the court decided that the seven -- who were freed on bail last week -- could no longer stay in Cambodia.

Ten young Westerners -- five from the United Kingdom, two from Canada, and one each from Norway, the Netherlands and New Zealand -- were detained when police raided a commercially organized party at a rented villa in Siem Reap town and found people dancing by a swimming pool at an event described as a pub crawl. Siem Reap is near the famous Angkor Wat temple complex. Three of the 10 considered organizers of the event were denied bail.

Police said those caught in the raid had been "dancing pornographically" and offended Cambodian standards of morality. Offenders face up to a year in jail if convicted of posting pornographic photos.

WWII bomb find cancels London flights

LONDON -- All flights in and out of London City Airport were canceled Monday after an 1,100-pound unexploded World War II bomb was found nearby in the River Thames.

The Metropolitan Police service cleared an area within 700 feet of the bomb, including several residential streets, as officers worked with specialists from the Royal Navy to remove the device.

Police said the German bomb was discovered Sunday at the George V Dock during pre-planned work at City Airport. They described it as a 5-foot shell that was lying in a bed of dense silt.

"The first stage of the removal operation is to free the shell from the silt so that it can be floated for removal," police said in a statement.

After that, navy bomb-disposal experts will tow it away and destroy it underwater in a controlled explosion.

A Section on 02/13/2018

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