Officials: Suspect’s ties to al-Qaida went to the top

Officials: Suspect’s ties to al-Qaida went to the top

NEW YORK — The airport- shuttle driver accused of plotting a bombing in New York had contacts with al-Qaida that went nearly all the way to the top, to an Osama bin Laden confidant believed to be the terrorist group’s leader in Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence officials told The Associated Press.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, an Egyptian reputed to be one of the founders of the terrorist network, used a middleman to contact Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi as the 24-year-old man hatched a plot to use homemade backpack bombs, perhaps on the city’s mass transit system, the two intelligence officials said.

Apartment sells for $57M

HONG KONG — It’s a price tag that would make even New Yorkers and Londoners gasp — an outsized luxury apartment sold for nearly $57 million in Hong Kong on Wednesday amid growing fears of a real-estate bubble.

The five-bedroom duplex suite with as much as 6,158 square feet was sold to an unidentified buyer from mainland China, said the developer, Henderson Land Development, a major Hong Kong property company.

Honduras talks continue

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Negotiators reached a tentative agreement Wednesday on whether to return ousted President Manuel Zelaya to office, but both the deposed Honduran leader and the coup-installed president responded to the plan only by saying that talks would go on.

It was unclear exactly what the proposed agreement entailed. Victor Meza, a negotiator for Zelaya, said representatives had reached consensus on the issue of Zelaya’s reinstatement, but he declined to give details until both Zelaya and interim President Roberto Micheletti had approved the plan.

Micheletti’s office released a statement later saying only that no definitive agreement had yet been reached and that talks would continue today.

Guilty of human trafficking

NEWARK, N.J. — A woman accused of forcing girls from Africa to work in New Jersey hair- braiding salons for no pay was convicted Wednesday of human trafficking and visa fraud in a case her lawyer says highlighted African cultural norms that failed to translate in America.

Prosecutors argued that Akouavi Kpade Afolabi, called “Sister” by the women she oversaw, helped bring at least 20 girls between the ages of 10 and 19 from the West African nations of Togo and Ghana on fraudulent visas to New Jersey starting in 2002.

They said she manipulated the impoverished young women, who aspired to better lives in America, and kept them in slavery-like conditions while stealing all their pay — even tips as meager as 50 cents.

Gates awards $120M in agricultural grants

SEATTLE — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced plans today to move beyond seeds, fertilizer and agriculture extension services and into politics and public policy in its efforts to bring a green revolution to sub-Saharan Africa.

The foundation announced nine grants totaling nearly $120 million a few hours before Bill Gates was scheduled to give his first major speech on agriculture as the keynote speaker at the World Food Prize event in Des Moines, Iowa.

In the past three years, the Gates Foundation has committed $1.4 billion to help small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia increase their yields and incomes.

About half of the grants announced today will go toward agriculture research in Africa. But several unusual projects were included, such as proposals to use cell phones and radio programs to educate small farmers.

Researchers: North Pole ice melting rapidly

LONDON — The North Pole will turn into an open sea during summer within a decade, according to data released by a team of explorers who trekked through the Arctic for three months.

The Catlin Arctic Survey team, led by explorer Pen Hadow, measured the thickness of the ice as it sledged and hiked through the northern part of the Beaufort Sea in the North Pole earlier this year during a research project. Their findings show that most of the ice in the region is first-year ice that is only around 6 feet deep and will melt next summer. The region traditionally has contained thicker, multiyear ice that does not melt as rapidly.

Professor Peter Wadhams, part of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, which analyzed the data, said Wednesday that the Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the consensus that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within 20 years, and that much of the decrease will happen within 10 years.

Associated Press