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BBC NewsQuote:
A big motorway pile-up in western Austria has left one person dead and 30 injured, police say.
The crash, involving at least 60 vehicles, was near the town of Seewalchen, on the main motorway linking Vienna and Salzburg.
A police spokesman said that low visibility caused by a major snowstorm was to blame for the accident.
Some victims were trapped in their vehicles, and falling snow was hampering rescue efforts.
Helicopters attempted to land at the scene, but some had to abort the rescue mission because of the heavy snowfall.
Around 40 Red Cross rescue vehicles have been sent to the scene, where they are working alongside the emergency services.
The Red Cross said a bus was involved in the incident.
At least five of the injured were in a serious condition and local hospitals have been put on stand-by to deal with the casualties.
The motorway has been closed in both directions.
This is not the first incident along this section of the motorway.
The Seelwachen to St Georgen section has seen several fatal crashes, mostly because of fog, in which 10 people have died since 2002.
BBC NewsQuote:
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has been challenged over claims that she came under sniper fire during a trip she made to Bosnia in the 1990s.
Video shown on US TV network CBS shows the then First Lady walking calmly from her plane. Her campaign has said she "misspoke" about landing under fire.
Aides to Barack Obama, her rival to be the party's presidential nominee, argue she overstates her foreign experience.
Rivalry between the pair has increased ahead of 22 April's Pennsylvania vote.
Meanwhile, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain addressed the nation's economic concerns at a campaign event in California on Tuesday.
The Arizona senator is keen to counter arguments that he lacks experience in that field, as the US economic downturn continues.
'Heads down'
The row over Mrs Clinton's 1996 Bosnia visit follow a speech she made on Iraq last week, in which she described herself and her daughter Chelsea being at some risk as they arrived.
She said: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
The video clip played by CBS on Monday shows Mrs Clinton and Chelsea walking across the tarmac smiling and waving before stopping to shake hands with Bosnia's acting president and meet an eight-year-old girl.
The Obama campaign issued a statement which carried links to the clip on the YouTube video networking site.
Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement that the story "joins a growing list of instances in which Senator Clinton has exaggerated her role in foreign and domestic policy-making".
Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said Mrs Clinton "misspoke" on one occasion about the incident.
In her book, she described how the airstrip greeting had been cut short because of sniper fire on a nearby hillside - and that was the account she had given many times, he said.
Options open
Mrs Clinton is continuing to campaign in Pennsylvania this week, while Mr Obama has taken a brief holiday from the campaign trail.
He is to embark on a six-day bus tour across the state on Friday, his aides said.
Mr Obama is ahead of Mrs Clinton in terms of the number of delegates won in primary elections so far.
The delegates will choose in August which candidate is to be the party's nominee in November's presidential election, standing against Mr McCain.
Mr McCain, speaking in Orange County in southern California on Tuesday, said he would leave all options open for dealing with current US economic troubles and would "not allow dogma to override common sense".
"I will not play election-year politics with the housing crisis," he said.
"I will evaluate everything in terms of whether it might be harmful or helpful to our effort to deal with the crisis we face now."
ReutersQuote:
Militants loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have clashed with Iraqi security forces in Basra and Baghdad for a second day in fighting that has killed more than 50 people and wounded hundreds.
The fighting between government forces and Sadr's followers has spread to other towns in the south where Sadr wields wide influence, as a ceasefire he imposed on his Mehdi Army militia last August unraveled.
US officials say the ceasefire has been a major factor in a reduction in violence in recent months in Iraq where Shi'ite militias have been vying for control in some cities, including oil-rich Basra.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has traveled to Iraq's second largest city Basra to oversee a military operation to impose government control, said fighters would be spared if they surrendered within 72 hours. Sadr has threatened a countrywide "civil revolt" if attacks on his followers continue.
The worst fighting was in Basra, where a health official said 40 people had been killed and 200 wounded.
In the capital, a health official said 14 people were killed and more than 140 wounded in clashes in Sadr City, the Shi'ite slum named for the cleric's slain father.
Three US citizens working for the US government in Baghdad were seriously wounded in a mortar attack in the Green Zone, the diplomatic and government compound, a US embassy spokeswoman said.
Police said Sadr fighters had seized control of seven districts in the southern town of Kut. A Reuters witness heard heavy clashes near a government building in the town centre.
The crackdown on Sadr militia is the largest operation yet conducted by Iraq's military without US or British support, an important test as Washington aims to bring 20,000 troops home and British forces disengaged in the Shi'ite south last year.
Basra police said heavy gunbattles restarted early Wednesday in five districts of Basra after a brief lull. Mortars or rocket attacks regularly struck Iraqi security checkpoints and bases.
Ground commander Major-General Ali Zaidan said his forces had killed more than 30 militants on the first day of the operation, which began before dawn on Tuesday. More than 25 were wounded and around 50 were captured, he said.
"The operation is still going on and will not stop until it achieves its objectives," he said. "It is on the same scale as yesterday."
"Now there is heavy gunfire and I have heard the sounds of explosions. I also saw a group of gunmen planting roadside bombs," said Abbas, a Basra resident who would only give his first name.
Several mortar rounds struck a police compound in Basra where prisoners were being held. Seven police and three prisoners were wounded.
FACTIONS
Two powerful factions of Iraq's Shi'ite majority, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and Sadr's followers, are fighting for power in Basra along with a smaller Shi'ite party, Fadhila. Sadr's followers say the security forces and US-led troops are siding with the Council against them.
British forces, which patrolled Basra for nearly five years, withdrew to a base outside the city in December and have not been involved in the fighting.
Washington aims to bring 20,000 of its 160,000 troops home by July after a build-up of troops reduced violence dramatically last year. But violence has increased in the past few months.
Maliki's government is under pressure to show it can maintain security on its own. US Democratic candidates who hope to succeed President George W Bush next January are calling for a speedy withdrawal from an unpopular war.
Several towns in southern Iraq were under curfew as authorities sought to prevent further outbreaks of violence.
"We have a shortage of doctors because the American troops are not letting them into Sadr City," said Ali Bustan, general director of the health office for eastern Baghdad.
Sadr, an influential leader who has not been seen in public for months, issued a statement calling on Iraqis to stage sit-ins all over Iraq and said he would declare "civil revolt" if attacks by US and Iraqi forces continued.
Streets in Basra were largely empty except for Iraqi security forces, and shops remained closed. At least four Iraqi helicopters could be seen hovering over the city.
"The situation is so tense. I did not go to work today. Nobody is going to work," said Kareem, a Basra resident who would only give his first name. "There are gunmen at every intersection."
An official with Iraq's Southern Oil Company said fighting had not affected Basra's oil output or exports, which provide the vast majority of government revenues.
ReutersQuote:
Five people are missing after an apartment building in Norway's western coastal town of Aalesund collapsed.
Media reports said about 21 people lived in the building and that several had been taken to hospital with minor injuries.
Police said the chances of finding more survivors were slim.
Police said a rock slide had contributed to the disaster.
"We early on knew that part of the mountain had come off, but whether that is the direct or indirect cause, is uncertain," police spokesman Magne Tjoennoey.
The apartment block, which was built against a mountainside, moved several metres, several eyewitnesses told public broadcaster NRK.
The lower floors of the building then caught fire, hampering rescue workers as they searched for those missing, police said.
"We are currently not inside the building, which is crushed," Tjoennoey said, adding expert help was on the way.
A second rockslide in the area had prompted the police to evacuate a number of nearby buildings, the police said.
ReutersQuote:
Nato forces have sent jets to escort two Russian long-range air force bombers patrolling neutral skies near Alaska.
Russia's military has resumed its Cold War practice of flying regular patrols far beyond its borders, and in the last year has also sent turbo-prop Tu-95s over US naval aircraft carriers and the Pacific island of Guam.
Accompanied by two Il-78 refueling tankers, the two Tu-95 "Bear" bombers flew for 15 hours over the Arctic and Pacific oceans, Interfax news agency quoted Russian Air Force spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky as saying.
"In the course of the air patrol, long-range aviation aircraft were escorted by Nato jets in the region of Alaska," said Drobyshevsky.
Originally designed to drop nuclear bombs, the Tu-95, Russia's equivalent of the US air force's B-52, is a Cold War icon refitted for surveillance and maritime patrols.
Russia, in the eighth year of an economic boom driven by high global oil prices, has raised military funding after years of neglect following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Russian navy has finished construction of mothballed submarines and restarted large-scale naval exercises that shortages of fuel and spare parts had made a rarity.
Analysts say the Kremlin is using its reviving military might to support a policy of projecting Russia's power again on the world stage.
But some military observers say the Russian armed forces are still hampered by a shortage of combat-ready assets and that the exercises are primarily a public relations exercise.
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