MEXICO
Authorities confirm 2 Americans killed
TIJUANA | A U.S. Consulate official in Tijuana confirmed that two U.S. citizens were fatally shot as they waited at a Tijuana-area border crossing to enter the United States.
Consulate spokesman Joseph L. Crook said Tuesday U.S. authorities are working with Mexican officials but offered no other details.
San Diego businessman Matt Pelot said Kevin Romero, 28, and Sergio Salcido, 25, were killed on their way to work at his company early Monday. Mr. Pelot said the men had worked for more than a year for West Coast Beverage Maintenance.
Mr. Pelot said Mr. Romero and Mr. Salcido were hard-working employees who had moved to Mexico to be able to live on the beach.
CHINA
Police question friends of missing artist
BEIJING | Chinese police called more people in for questioning Tuesday as they expanded their investigation into avant-garde artist Ai Weiwei, who has not been heard from since being taken into custody over the weekend, friends said.
Mr. Ai, an outspoken government critic, was last seen early Sunday in police custody after he was barred from boarding a flight at a Beijing airport. His disappearance comes as the security services carry out a massive crackdown on lawyers, writers and activists after online calls for protests in China similar to those in the Middle East and North Africa. No public protests have emerged.
The European Union delegation in Beijing on Tuesday joined the U.S. and Britain in expressing concern over Mr. Ai’s case, deploring the ramped-up detention of government critics.
EUROPE
Scientists study pool of Arctic fresh water
AMSTERDAM | Scientists are monitoring a massive pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean that could spill into the Atlantic and alter the key ocean currents that give Western Europe its moderate climate.
The oceanographers said Tuesday the unusual accumulation has been caused by Siberian and Canadian rivers dumping more water into the Arctic and from melting sea ice. Both are consequences of global warming.
If it flushes into the Atlantic, the infusion of fresh water could, in the worst case, change the ocean current that brings warmth from the tropics to European shores, said Laura De Steur of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research.
AFGHANISTAN
Detainees OK’d for release still held at Bagram
KABUL | Amin al-Bakri holds a get-out-of-jail card from a detainee review board, but so far it’s been useless to the former Yemeni gem salesman, who has been locked up at the U.S. military prison in Afghanistan for more than eight years.
Day upon day, Mr. al-Bakri, 42, wakes up behind bars at the massive U.S. detention center near Bagram Air Field. It’s the same place that CIA Director Leon Panetta says Osama bin Laden would be taken for initial questioning - if he’s ever captured.
Mr. Al-Bakri, who was never charged, is not alone.
More than a dozen detainees who were picked up outside of Afghanistan have been cleared for release by review boards but are still at Bagram, according to an estimate by Daphne Eviatar, a senior associate at Human Rights First, a nonprofit international human rights organization based in New York and Washington, D.C.
The detainees’ lawyers suspect some are caught up in political problems between the U.S. and their home countries, including Yemen, Pakistan and Tunisia.
The Defense Department did not respond to allegations that political issues are delaying the release of detainees.
KENYA
Rights official: Leaders preaching hate
GATUNDU | The son of Kenya’s founding father and a former government minister took the stage before thousands of supporters in what was billed as prayer meeting days before the two face the International Criminal Court.
But observers say the two - along with high-powered supporters - instead could be trying to rile up tribes with hate speech, which could incite the type of violence Kenya saw after its 2007 presidential election.
It is for that violence that six Kenyans must report to The Hague on Thursday for preliminary proceedings over charges of crimes against humanity. More than 1,000 Kenyans died and 600,000 were forced from their homes during the violence in late 2007 and early 2008.
From wire dispatches and staff reports
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