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Israeli guards kill two 13-year olds near border

By TIMES WIRES
Published June 2, 2007

GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP

Israeli troops shot and killed two 13-year-old Palestinians near the Gaza-Israel border fence Friday, saying they were crawling toward the barrier in a "suspicious manner." The boys had told their families they were going to the beach.

Also Friday, an Islamic Jihad militant was killed in an Israeli missile strike while riding his motorcycle in southern Gaza, Palestinian security officials said. Earlier in the day, Islamic Jihad said it fired two rockets toward Israel. No one claimed responsibility for two more rocket launches, and no one was hurt

Troops saw the Palestinians crawling and putting an object near the fence, the army said. The soldiers shot only after calling on the boys to stop advancing, the army said.

BEIJING

China's No. 6 leader dies

Vice Premier Huang Ju, a key ally of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin who climbed the ranks of Shanghai politics to join the Communist Party's inner sanctum of power, died early Saturday, the official Xinhua News Agency said. He was 68.

He ranked No. 6 in the party hierarchy. His death creates a vacancy in the Politburo and gives President Hu Jintao an opportunity to increase his hold on power by filling it with a supporter.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

U.S. pilots indicted in air crash

A federal judge indicted two U.S. pilots and four Brazilian air traffic controllers on manslaughter-related charges Friday in Brazil's worst air disaster, court officials said.

Judge Murilo Mendes accepted the charges filed by a prosecutor last week in a federal court in Sinop, a small city near the Amazon jungle site where a Boeing jetliner last year plunged into the rain forest after a collision with an executive jet. All 154 people aboard the jetliner died, while the executive jet landed safely.

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN

Christian may die for blasphemy

A Christian was sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Islam's prophet Mohammed, and a human rights activist Friday urged Pakistan's president to spare his life.

Younis Masih, 29, was arrested in September 2005 on the outskirts of Lahore after residents told police he made derogatory remarks against Islam and Mohammed.

Rights groups say the blasphemy laws are misused against Christians since they were enacted in the 1980s.

[Last modified June 2, 2007, 02:04:37]