ISTANBUL, Turkey
Pair try to hijack jet with 142 aboard
Two men tried to hijack a Turkish passenger plane with 142 people aboard Saturday but failed after pilots arranged an emergency landing in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya and the two lost control of the passengers.
The plane was en route to Istanbul from Nicosia, in northern Cyprus, when the hijackers, identified by Turkish officials as Mehmet Resat Ozlu, a Turkish national, and Abdulaziz Maliki, a Syrian holding a Palestinian passport, demanded that it be diverted to Iran. They said they were protesting actions by the United States, the officials said.
TEHRAN
Military helicopter crashes; 6 killed
An Iranian military helicopter slammed into a mountain during a storm, killing at least six people, including five members of the country’s elite Revolutionary Guards, state media reported Saturday.
Five other military men were reported wounded. The crash occurred during military maneuvers Friday near the town of Piranshahr in the Kurdish region of Iran along the border with Iraq, 435 miles west of the capital, Tehran.
BETTMERALP, Switzerland
Hundreds form naked sculpture
Hundreds of naked people formed a “living sculpture” on Switzerland’s Aletsch glacier Saturday, hoping to raise awareness of climate change.
The photo shoot by Spencer Tunick, the New York artist famous for his pictures of nude gatherings in public settings worldwide, was designed to draw attention to the effects of global warming on Switzerland’s shrinking glaciers.
It said most Swiss glaciers will disappear by 2080 if global warming continues at its current pace.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden
Family, friends remember Bergman
A few dozen family and friends of Ingmar Bergman attended his funeral Saturday on the small Swedish island where he spent his final years – a low-key affair in keeping with the filmmaker’s wishes.
Bergman was 89 when he died July 30.
Mourners gathered in Faro Church, where Bergman’s remains lay in a simple pine coffin flanked by red roses. There were no speeches. An organ and cello played Bach.
LONDON
“Potter” author turns to crime
J.K. Rowling has been spotted at cafes in Scotland working on a detective novel, a newspaper reported Saturday.
The Sunday Times newspaper quoted Ian Rankin, a fellow author and neighbor of Rowling’s, as saying the “Harry Potter” creator is turning to crime fiction.
“My wife spotted her writing her Edinburgh criminal detective novel,” the newspaper quoted Rankin as telling a reporter at a literary festival.
Rowling wrote initial drafts of the Potter story in the Scottish city’s cafes. Back then, she was a struggling single mother who wrote in cafes to save on the heating bill at home.
