EGYPT
Dozens from migrant boat die
Survivors, some handcuffed to hospital beds, described watching women and children drown after an overcrowded migrant boat capsized off Egypt’s coast, as Egyptian authorities said Thursday 51 bodies had been recovered and an international NGO estimated that over a hundred people were still missing at sea. Fishermen in boats were first at the scene early Wednesday, an Egyptian official said, and in the more than five hours it took the coast guard to arrive, they rescued dozens of survivors and retrieved bodies. The final death toll will require first obtaining a reliable figure for how many people were on board the boat, and more bodies could yet be recovered at sea or along the coast.
UNITED NATIONS
Netanyahu invites Palestinian
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended an unprecedented invitation Thursday to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, urging him to address Israel’s parliament. Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly, Netanyahu offered in turn to appear before the Palestinian legislature. The Palestinians rejected the invitation as a gimmick designed to mask what they described as Israel’s intransigence on moving forward with the Mideast peace process.
PUERTO RICO
Power still out in most areas
Most Puerto Ricans faced another night of darkness Thursday as crews slowly restored electricity a day after a fire at a power plant caused the aging utility grid to fail and blacked out the entire island of 3.5 million people. Only about 20 percent of the 1.5 million homes and businesses served by the power utility had power back by Thursday afternoon, and Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla said they hoped half would be reconnected by the end of the day. Nearly all of the rest were expected to get electricity again Friday, said Garcia.
BRAZIL
Ex-finance minister arrested
The ex-finance minister under presidents Dilma Rousseff and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was arrested Thursday in the corruption scandal at state-run oil giant Petrobras, but a judge allowed him to be freed while his wife had cancer surgery. Lower court Judge Sergio Moro decided the investigation would not be harmed by the release of Guido Mantega during his wife’s procedure. Mantega has been accused of asking tycoon Eike Batista for bribes in exchange for approval for two oil platform contracts.
Compiled from wire reports