After typhoon, two U.S. Marines missing in Japan

SEOUL, South Korea -- Typhoon Rusa caused floods and landslides across South Korea on Saturday, killing at least three people after whipping up waves that swept away two U.S. Marines in Japan.

Five others were missing in southern South Korea after being carried away by floodwaters, while rescuers in the east were trying to reach people trapped inside 10 cars buried in a mudslide.

The two Marines were pulled under by waves Friday night after they went out to watch the stormy surf on the Japanese island of Okinawa, said Japanese coast guard official Yasuhiro Arasaki. The typhoon only brushed Japan, but still brought strong winds and sheets of rain.

Six Pakistanis sentenced to death for gang rape

DERA GHAZI KHAN, Pakistan -- A judge sentenced six men to death by hanging in the gang-rape of a woman to punish her family -- a case closely watched by government officials and international human rights groups. Eight men were acquitted in the verdict early Sunday.

Those receiving the death sentence included four accused of the actual rape and two members of a tribal council that ordered the June 22 assault in the village of Meerwala, about 350 miles southwest of Islamabad. They also were fined $660 apiece. The eight who were acquitted were also members of the council.

Indonesian gunmen kill three; 2 were American

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Gunmen armed with automatic weapons ambushed a convoy headed to a huge gold mine run by a U.S. corporation, killing two Americans and an Indonesian in an unprecedented attack Saturday in Indonesia's troubled Papua province.

Fourteen others, including six U.S. citizens, were injured in the attack near the world's largest gold mine.

The convoy of cars was headed from the town of Timika to the Grasberg mine, an immense open-pit dig that for many Papuans is a symbol of unwanted Indonesian rule.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, though Papua police chief Brig. Gen. I Made Pastika said it was possible the separatist Free Papua Movement was involved.

Cleric: Muslims should withdraw assets from U.S.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Muslims everywhere should withdraw their money from U.S. markets because those funds may be frozen or confiscated, Lebanon's top Shiite Muslim cleric said in a sermon.

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah also warned worshippers gathered in a Beirut suburb that a possible U.S. attack on Iraq was designed to assert America's control of oil in the Middle East.

Fadlallah's sermon came days after a lawyer for 700 relatives of Sept. 11 victims filed a $1 trillion lawsuit against the Saudi and Sudanese governments, as well as members of Saudi royal family, banks and charities. It contends that they financed the plot in which some 3,000 people died.-- From wire reports

Second Russian helicopter downed by missile in Chechnya

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia -- A Russian helicopter was downed by a missile in Chechnya on Saturday, killing two, officials said. The crash came less than two weeks after a transport helicopter was brought down by a missile in the deadliest surface-to-air attack against Russian forces fighting Chechen rebels.

The Mi-24 helicopter was shot down by a missile near the village of Meskety in southeastern Chechnya, a Defense Ministry spokesman said. It was one of two Mi-24 combat helicopters flying with an Mi-8 transport helicopter, he said. The helicopter's two pilots were killed, he said.

Nikolai Deryabin, the ministry's chief spokesman, told the Interfax news agency that the two Mi-24's were accompanying the Mi-8 as it made food deliveries to units operating in mountainous parts of Chechnya.