US: Afghanistan to release prisoners

US: Afghanistan to release prisoners

kabul

The Afghan government has begun the process of releasing three dozen prisoners despite U.S. protests that they are highly dangerous, officials said Monday, the latest sign of deteriorating relations between the two countries ahead of the year-end withdrawal of most international combat troops.

The move to release the prisoners prompted an angry denunciation from the U.S. military, which said the 37 prisoners slated for release are “dangerous insurgents who have Afghan blood on their hands” with strong evidence against them to merit further prosecution or investigation — from DNA linking them to roadside bombs to explosives residue on their clothing.

Ukraine president ready to scrap law

kiev, ukraine

Ukraine’s beleaguered president Monday agreed to scrap harsh anti-protest laws that set off a wave of clashes between protesters and police over the past week, a potentially substantial concession to the opposition that stopped short of meeting all of its demands.

In a possibly major sticking point, a proposed amnesty for arrested protesters would not be offered unless demonstrators ended their round-the-clock protests and tent camp on Kiev’s central Independence Square, according to a statement by Justice Minister Elena Lukash.

President Viktor Yanukovych has been under increasing pressure since he pushed the tough laws through parliament.

Marines to retry sergeant in case

san diego

The Marine Corps will retry a sergeant whose murder conviction in a major Iraq war-crime case has been overturned twice by military courts in recent years, a spokesman said Monday.

The military branch determined that the seriousness of the crime warranted a retrial of the case of Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, who led an eight-man squad accused of kidnapping a retired Iraqi policeman in the village of Hamdania in 2006 and shooting him to death in a ditch, Marine Corps spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph Kloppel said.

The military prosecution has evidence to support its murder charge, including sworn statements, Kloppel said. He declined to give further details.

Relic stolen in Italy

rome

Police are searching an Italian mountain area beloved by Pope John Paul II for a stolen relic bearing his blood. Vatican Radio decried the ‘’sacrilegious theft” from tiny San Pietro della Ienca church near the Gran Sasso part of the Apennine mountains, where John Paul used to hike and ski.

Carabinieri paramilitary police Col. Andrea Ronchey in nearby L’Aquila told The Associated Press Monday that the relic — a bit of blood-soaked cloth kept inside a painted metal cross — was last seen Thursday in the church.

Plague DNA found

LONDON

Scientists say two of the deadliest pandemics in history were caused by strains of the same plague and warn that new versions of the bacteria could spark future outbreaks.

Researchers found tiny bits of DNA in the teeth of two German victims killed by the Justinian plague about 1,500 years ago. With those fragments, they reconstructed the genome of the oldest bacteria known.

They concluded the Justinian plague was caused by a strain of Yersinia pestis, the same pathogen responsible for the Black Death that struck medieval Europe. The study was published online today in the journal, Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Associated Press