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2 suspects in Holloway case freed from jail

By Times Wires
Published December 2, 2007

ORANJESTAD, Aruba

 Deepak Kalpoe, 24, and Satish Kalpoe, 21, the two Surinamese brothers re-arrested last week in the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, walked out of jail Saturday after a judge ruled the evidence wasn't strong enough to keep holding them. A third suspect, Joran van der Sloot, remains in jail. He and the Kalpoes were the last known people to see Holloway before she vanished more than two years ago, hours before she was scheduled to return home to Alabama with fellow high school classmates.

FLORENCE, Italy

Truffle auctioned for $330,000

Macau casino billionaire Stanley Ho bid a record $330,00 at auction Saturday to win a giant white truffle dug up in Tuscany, organizers said. Ho made the winning bid for the 3.3-pound truffle during an auction staged simultaneously in Florence and London and at Ho's Grand Lisboa hotel in Macau, said auction organizer Giselle Oberti. The price bested the previous record of $212,000 for a truffle, she said.

KABUL, Afghanistan

Civilians, militants die in explosions

A roadside bomb hit a civilian vehicle in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, leaving three people dead, while a mine explosion killed four suspected Taliban fighters, officials said. The militants were attending a wedding party in southern Zabul province when a land mine they were carrying exploded accidentally, killing four and wounding eight others. The insurgents had been planting roadside bombs hoping to hit NATO and U.S. forces, said the provincial police chief, Gen. Yaqoob Khan.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil

Fight against AIDS goes to schools

Brazil's government announced plans to put condom-dispensing machines in public schools to help teenagers reduce the spread of AIDS. The health and education ministries and the United Nations sponsored a nationwide contest for students to design the dispenser. Three potential models were selected on Friday, the government news agency Agencia Brasil said. The machines are to be installed in 100 public schools in 2008, officials said.

Elsewhere

Colombo, Sri Lanka: Government troops fought a series of gunbattles with separatist Tamil Tiger rebels across Sri Lanka's northern front lines Saturday, leaving 24 guerrillas and three soldiers dead and dozens injured, the military said.

Paris: A member of the Spanish Civil Guard was shot and killed Saturday in southwest France in an attack officials blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA. It was the first death attributed to the militant group since it abandoned a cease-fire in June.

London: Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, Britain's domestic spy agency, has warned 300 executives and security chiefs at banks and accounting and legal firms that China is spying on the computer systems of British corporations, the Times of London reported on Saturday.

Gaza City, Gaza Strip: Militants threatened Saturday to fire longer-range rockets and target larger Israeli communities, after five Hamas members were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Hamas said the men were on a night patrol east of Khan Younis. The Israeli army said it carried out the strike after identifying armed men near its border with Gaza.

Times wires

[Last modified December 2, 2007, 01:51:54]