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PAGE 3A
NEWS OF THE WORLD
CARIBBEAN
American still detained in Cuba
ASSOCIATED PRESS
HAVANA — A senior Cuban diplomat said Wednesday her country is prepared to negotiate a solution in the case of a jailed American contractor, but is awaiting a U.S. response.
Foreign Ministry official Josefina Vidal also rejected allegations by the wife of 63-year-old Maryland native Alan Gross that her husband's health is failing after more than 21/2 years in custody.
"Cuba reiterates its willingness to talk with the United States government to find a solution in the case of Mr. Gross and continues to await an answer," Vidal, who heads the ministry's Office of North American Affairs, said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.
She gave no details. It was the first time a Cuban official has hinted that a specific proposal has been made and indicated that the ball was in Washington's court.
President Raul Castro's government have raised the case of five Cuban agents sentenced to long jail terms in the United States, though they have not spelled out publicly that they are seeking an exchange.
Previously, senior officials in
This two-picture comic handout file photo provided by Peter Kahn, the attorney,
of imprisoned American Alan Gross, shows Goss in 2009 and in 2012.
U. S. officials say privately, however, that Havana has made it increasingly clear they want a quid pro quo, something Washington has repeatedly rejected.
Jared Genser, a Washington-based attorney for the Gross family, said in a telephone interview he knows of no active proposal that the Cuban government has put forward for his client's release.
He said American officials had long made clear to the Cubans that trading Gross for the Cuban agents is a nonstarter.
"My definition of a proposal is something that is specific and actionable," he said.
Genser challenged Vidal to publicly name a date, time and location where the Cuban government would be willing to meet with U.S. officials to negotiate a release.
Gross's wife, Judy, traveled to Cuba and visited her husband in
custody several times last week. She said upon her return to the United States that she feared he would not survive his ordeal.
AFRICA
Somalian president survives assassination attempt
MOGADISHU. Somalia —
MOHAMED HACOY SOMALIA
Somali's new president survived an assassination attempt on his second day in office when two suicide bombers blew themselves up Wednesday while trying to gain access into a heavily guarded hotel that is his temporary residence, officials and witnesses said.
The attack highlights the challenge that insecurity caused by an Islamist insurgency poses to Somalia's fledgling government, which is expected to help transform the east
African country from being a failed state to one with functioning government.
The African Union Mission for Somalia said one of its soldiers was killed when the two suicide attackers attempted to penetrate the Jazeera Hotel where the President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Kenya's foreign minister were giving a news conference.
Associated Press
The two suicide bombers set off explosions after they were shot by soldiers guarding the Jazera Hotel,
while another was intercepted and shot dead as he attempted to scale the walls of the hotel's compound, the African Union Mission for Somalia, known as Amisom, said in a statement.
Witnesses say at least one more person was killed, bringing the total death toll to a minimum of five, including the three attackers.
Al-Shabab, a radical Islamist militia that is affiliated with al-Qaida and waging an insurgency against the Somali government, quickly claimed responsibility for the attack. Al-Shabab had opposed Mohamud's election, saying it had been manipulated by Western powers.
African Union forces are helping the Somali government fight al-Shabab, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist group.
The president, who was elected by Parliament on Monday, was undeterred by the explosions and continued to speak to the media,
AMISOM said.
EUROPE
Bootleg alcohol kills at least four Czechs
PRAGUE. Czech Republic — At least 19 people are dead and 24 others hospitalized. Some of them have been blinded, while others have been induced into comas in the hope that doctors can save them.
All had drunk cheap vodka and rum laced with methanol, a toxic substance used to stretch alcohol on the black market and guarantee high profits for manufacturers.
The Czech Republic announced emergency measures Wednesday as the death toll from the methanol poisoning mounted, including two women aged 28 and 21. Kiosks and markets were banned from selling spirits with more than 30 percent alcohol content and police raided outlets nationwide. At 410 sites, they found 70 cases of illegal alcohol.
Prime Minister Pet Necas called on all Czechs to refrain from drinking "any alcohol whose origin is uncertain" but authorities still feared the death toll will rise further.
Little is officially known about the culprits other than that they work in the country's depressed northeast, a former heartland of industry under
communism. The Moravian-Silesian region near the border with Poland has unemployment about 50 percent higher than the national average of 8.3 percent.
Of the 16 confirmed dead in the Czech Republic, eight lived in the region; two others died in neighboring Poland and one more in Slovakia.
Senior police official Vaclav Kucera said all the poisoning cases so far are likely connected and two suspects have been arrested — one in the eastern city of Zlin and another in the northeastern city of Havirov. The first two fatalities were announced Sept. 6 in Havirov.
Methanol is mainly used for industrial purposes but unscrupulous criminal networks sometimes misuse it to illegally produce cheap liquor because it's cheap and impossible to distinguish from real drinking alcohol.
Despite the current tragedy, such outbreaks have been rare in Europe. In Serbia, 43 people died in 1998 from illegally-made plum brandy and a man was sentenced to 12 years in jail.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Doctors try to save the life a 65-year-old man poisoned by methyl alcohol (methanol) in the hospital of the Czech town of Pribram. At least four more people have died in the Czech Republic after drinking bootleigh alcohol.