World Scene

MOROCCO

78 dead in military plane crash

RABAT — A C-130 military transport plane crashed into a Moroccan mountain Tuesday in bad weather, killing 78 people, the state news agency said. It reported three survivors.

The crash in a southern region close to the disputed Western Sahara was this country’s deadliest in years.

Information Minister Khaled Naciri told the Associated Press that the military believes 78 were killed but that searches are ongoing for all the bodies.

The MAP news agency said all three survivors were seriously injured. It said the plane was carrying 60 members of the military, 12 civilians and nine crew members.

Citing a Royal Armed Forces statement, the report said the remains of only 42 people have been found so far. It was not immediately clear how the military determined that 78 were killed.

MAP said the plane crashed around 9 a.m., about six miles northeast of Guelmim in southern Morocco, as it prepared to land at the Guelmim military air base.

NORWAY

Lawyer: Massacre suspect is likely insane

OSLO — The man who confessed to the massacre that has rocked Norway is unaware of the impact of the attacks and asked his defense counsel how many people he had killed, the lawyer told the Associated Press on Tuesday, adding that his client is likely insane.

That chilling question furthers the emerging portrait of Anders Behring Breivik: The judge in his case described him as very calm, a police officer said he was merciless in his shooting spree, and his lawyer added Tuesday that he saw himself as a warrior and savior of the Western world.

Mr. Breivik has confessed to last week’s bombing in the capital and a rampage at a Labor Party retreat for young people that left at least 76 people dead, but he has pleaded not guilty to the terrorism charges he faces, claiming he acted to save Europe from what he says is Muslim colonization.

On Tuesday, Norwegian police began releasing the names of those killed in Friday’s bomb blast and massacre at the youth camp.

CUBA

Cubans celebrate 58-year-old revolution

CIEGO DE AVILA — Cuba marked the 58th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s failed attack on the Moncada army barracks Tuesday without a speech from President Raul Castro.

Instead, Cubans heard from his second in command, who offered few new details while pressing standard themes such as organization, discipline and economic reform.

The main speaker was 80-year-old Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, who said the country will move forward with economic reforms “without haste, but without pause.”

The July 26 holiday is often used to make major announcements.

Raul Castro has allowed more islanders to run small independent businesses and hire employees, and pledged to groom new leaders to take over from the aging revolutionary generation.

KOSOVO

NATO: Deal reached to end border crisis

PRISTINA — Kosovo’s special police forces that moved into the country’s disputed north overnight to extend the government’s writ at borders with Serbia will withdraw as part of a deal between Kosovo and Serbia mediated by NATO, a spokesman for the military alliance said Tuesday.

No Kosovo officials were immediately available to confirm whether a deal was reached. But an AP reporter witnessed traffic resuming on a main road in the north after Kosovo police special units withdrew and Serbs removed trucks used to block the road.

The overnight operation by Kosovo’s special police units was criticized by the European Union, which is mediating normalization talks between the former foes, and it is likely to inflame tensions in the region that remains disputed more than a decade after the end of the Kosovo war.

AUSTRALIA

Broom, then pepper spray subdue Outback kangaroo

CANBERRA — A 94-year-old woman struck an attacking kangaroo with a broom and managed to crawl to safety in her house in the Australian Outback before police subdued the animal with pepper spray.

Phyllis Johnson said the kangaroo attacked her while she was hanging her laundry in her yard Sunday in the Queensland state town of Charleville.

She said she saw a blur of red fur before the kangaroo knocked her down and kicked her. Ms. Johnson told Australian media she managed to get to her feet and grab the broom to hit the animal enough times to daze it and escape.

“She fought it off herself with a bit of help from the family dog,” her son said Tuesday. Rob Johnson said the kangaroo had “a bit of a go” at him, too, when he arrived home from church.

From wire dispatches and staff reports