LOCHGOILHEAD, Scotland
Ex-hostage reporter reunited with family
BBC reporter Alan Johnston was reunited with his family Saturday after four months as a hostage in the Gaza Strip and said one of the hardest parts of his ordeal was imagining his parents’ anguish.
“I felt that I had brought the very worst of the world’s troubles into their normally peaceful lives,” Johnston, looking gaunt, told reporters outside his parents’ home in Scotland.
But “one of the better moments” was when one of his captors allowed him to watch television and he saw his father, Graham, speaking at a news conference.
“It was just Dad at his best, in the depth of a crisis, calm and dignified and so strong. I was so relieved,” he said.
Johnston, 45, was seized in March by a small armed group, the Army of Islam, and freed Wednesday. He had covered Gaza for the British Broadcasting Corp. for three years, the only foreign reporter to live in the coastal strip.
Johnston said he intends to take a few months off to rest but said he was looking forward to getting back to work.
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria
Kidnapped British toddler may be freed
A British toddler kidnapped in Nigeria’s volatile oil region may be freed imminently, police said Saturday.
Three-year-old Margaret Hill was kidnapped Thursday in the oil industry center of Port Harcourt. Police Commissioner Felix Ogbaudu said police have received information on her whereabouts from sources he did not name.
President Umaru Yar’Adua has instructed security forces to ensure the girl’s safe release. Police say they will not use force to free the girl, seized by gunmen while the car taking her to school idled in traffic. It was the first abduction of a foreign child in the lawless oil region of Africa’s biggest oil producer.
KATMANDU, Nepal
11 die when wedding trailer slides in canal
Nine children and two adults died when a tractor pulling a trailer carrying guests in a wedding procession skidded off a road and into a canal in rural southern Nepal, an official said Saturday.
Two other passengers were seriously hurt in the accident late Friday in Barhathawa village, about 125 miles southeast of Katmandu, said Sitaram Pokhrel, chief government administrator in the area.
He did not say what caused the tractor to veer off the road.
KATMANDU, Nepal
10,000 protest king on his 60th birthday
Nepal’s king celebrated his 60th birthday Saturday with a lavish ceremony at his palace that set off protests in the streets of Katmandu.
Calling the king a criminal, 10,000 demonstrators demanded the abolition of the monarchy at a demonstration organized by youth and student groups affiliated with major political parties.
King Gyanendra angered many when he seized absolute power in February 2005 and fired an interim government.
He has been stripped of his powers and command over the army. His fate will be decided by a special assembly to be elected in November.
