Firefighters pin hopes on the weather

ORDWAY Three people, including the pilot of a firefighting aircraft, have been killed by bushfires which have spread to a town and military base in Colorado. At least 20 buildings were burnt and 1,200 residents evacuated after winds of up to 50mph (80km/h) helped flames to spread to Ordway, Chris Sorensen, a fire information officer, said. Two people died in the fire, which spread across 11sq miles (29sq km) of the front range of the Rocky Mountains and the eastern plains.

A pilot who was fighting the blaze, which had burnt 14sq m of land near the Fort Carson military base, died when his aircraft crashed. People living near the base had to be evacuated after the accident. Two homes were damaged and a victim was injured when a third fire broke out near Carbondale in the western Colorado mountains.

The fires started after a wet winter was followed by dry weather last month. The National Weather Service has issued a high danger warning for the state. Firefighters hope that rain and snow will stop the fires spreading. (AP)

Sex-slave saviour is honoured

STOCKHOLM A Cambodian activist who has worked to rescue girls from sexual slavery has won the World Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child.

The Swedish prize committee said that Somaly Mam had been honoured for her “dangerous struggle” to save girls sold to brothels in Cambodia. She was elected winner in a vote by 6.6 million children around the world. Ms Mam was sold as a sex slave as a child. She founded the charity Afesip, of which she is president, in 1997. It has built safe houses providing refuge, food, health care and schooling for girls saved from slavery. In 2006 her 14-year-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and sold to a brothel before being returned.

Ms Mam will receive her award from Queen Silvia of Sweden at a ceremony in a castle outside Stockholm tomorrow. Josefina Condori, of Peru, and Agnes Stevens, of the US, will share an honorary award. Ms Condori has helped housemaids living in “slave-like conditions” in Peru and Ms Stevens works with homeless children. (AP)

Leaders feared dead in plane’s sea plunge

MALABO Several members of Equatorial Guinea’s Government were reported to have been killed aboard an aircraft that crashed off the island of Annobon.

Officials confirmed that at least four people died and seven were missing after a “tragic accident” involving an Air Force Antonov-32.

They gave no details of the six passengers. But airport sources said the plane had been carrying leaders of Equatorial Guinea’s ruling party, including ministers.

A government spokesman said: “Efforts to find survivors have for the moment led to the recovery of four lifeless bodies.” The aircraft had flown from Equatorial Guinea’s economic capital, Bata. (AFP)

Reporters freed

HARARE A court has acquitted Barry Bearak of the New York Times and Stephen Bevan, a British freelance, of covering Zimbabwe’s elections without accreditation. They had been on bail of 300 million Zimbabwean dollars (£3.80). (Reuters)

Potter deal proposed

NEW YORK J. K. Rowling and the man who wants to publish an unauthorised lexicon to her Harry Potter novels have been urged by the judge hearing their case to settle their “close call” copyright dispute out of court to avoid “years of appeals”. (AP)

Transport is halted

NAIROBI A threat to behead anyone using public transport in parts of the Kenyan capital by a criminal gang protesting over the killing of its imprisoned leader’s wife and acting leader’s brother forced commuters to walk for miles. (AP)

Congo crash toll

GOMA The death toll after a passenger plane ploughed into a shanty town in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo while trying to take off has been put at 40, with 111 injured, mostly residents. The six crew and 53 of the 79 passengers survived. (AFP)

Executions approved

WASHINGTON The Supreme Court rejected by a vote of seven to two a challenge to the use of a three-drug cocktail in most executions, clearing the way for them to begin again in the United States after they were halted last year. (Reuters)

Newspaper strike

PARIS Le Monde, one of the most influential newspapers in France, will not appear today after journalists at the title voted to go on strike for the second time this week in protest at plans to cut 130 jobs, including one in four journalists. (Reuters)

‘Nazi’ ad withdrawn

SEOUL A South Korean cosmetics company, Coreana Cosmetics, said it would halt an advertising campaign for a skin lotion that contained Nazi references after complaints from an antiSemitism group and the Israeli Embassy. (AP)

Unsafe deposit

BERLIN Three days after stealing a collection of coins worth £40,000, a thief took them to a bank for safekeeping – where they were handled by the bank worker from whose home they were taken. A man aged 36 has been arrested. (Reuters)

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