Victims of plane crash still unidentified
KATHMANDU, Nepal — Authorities in Nepal are struggling to identify the survivors of a deadly plane crash earlier this week, with many of the injured badly burned, in critical condition and unable to speak, officials said Thursday.
Extensive burns, in both the living and the dead, have made identifications far more difficult, said police spokesman Manoj Neupane. The plane from Bangladesh, which was carrying 67 passengers and four crew members, slammed into a field beside the Kathmandu airport runway Monday, bursting into flames and killing 49 people.
Of the 22 survivors, 19 are still being treated in Kathmandu hospitals, he said Thursday, and another has been flown to Singapore for more medical care. Two surviving passengers, both of them Nepalese, have been discharged and gone home.
Peru leader again facing impeachment
LIMA, Peru — Peru’s congress has voted by a wide margin to reopen impeachment proceedings against President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, thrusting the Andean nation into renewed political turmoil.
It’s the second time lawmakers have threatened to remove the former Wall Street investor over his ties to the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, which is at the heart of Latin America’s biggest corruption scandal.
In December, Kuczynski narrowly avoided being voted out of office after a small opposition faction, including the son of then-jailed former President Alberto Fujimori, abstained. Days later, Kuczynski pardoned Fujimori from a 25-year jail sentence for human-rights abuses committed during his decadelong rule.
But analysts say his chances of survival look slimmer this time. The deeply unpopular president has become increasingly isolated as one-time allies abandon him and polls show a majority of Peruvians want Kuczynski out.
The measure adopted Thursday inviting Kuczynski to appear before congress next week to defend his actions had the support of 87 lawmakers — the same number needed to eventually oust the president.
Spain asks if fugitive vulnerable on trip
MADRID — Spanish prosecutors said Thursday that they have asked the government and Interpol to assess whether Carles Puigdemont, the fugitive ex-president of Spain’s restive Catalonia region, can be arrested and extradited during his private visit to Switzerland this weekend.
The office of Spain’s state prosecutor said in a statement that it is also asking the Supreme Court, which is considering charges of sedition and rebellion against Puigdemont, to consider revoking his passport.
Since November, Puigdemont has been living in Brussels, where he fled to avoid arrest as part of a Spanish investigation into his role in recent Catalan attempts to break away from Spain.
The Swiss Foreign Ministry says Puigdemont is due in Geneva on Sunday after accepting an invitation from the International Film Festival and the Forum on Human Rights.
Swiss authorities say Puigdemont is free to travel to Switzerland under Schengen-zone rules.
Copter crash in Iraq kills U.S. troops
A U.S. military helicopter crashed Thursday near the city of al-Qaim in western Iraq, killing some of the seven service members aboard, U.S. officials said.
It was unclear why the aircraft, an HH-60 Pave Hawk, went down, the officials added. They did not rule out ground fire, and they could not confirm how many people had been killed.
One official said the helicopter was not on a combat operation but was ferrying troops.
Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday night that rescue personnel had been deployed and that the crash, in Anbar province, near Syria, was under investigation.
The HH-60 is a modified version of the Black Hawk helicopter. It is often flown by the Air Force for medical evacuation missions and is used by special operations para-rescue specialists.
The crash comes as U.S. forces and their Iraqi counterparts are winding down combat operations against the Islamic State extremist group. In December, the Pentagon said there were roughly 5,200 U.S. troops still in the country.
The border between Iraq and Syria is still a dangerous area for the U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State, as fighters are hiding in the vast desert there. Iraqi security forces conduct weekly operations to try to clear the area of militants.