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A massive crowd waits for delayed trains in Guangzhou, in south China's Guangdong province Tuesday. More than 500,000 passengers were stranded in the city after heavy snow in provinces to the north created havoc with transport networks. Winter storms — called the worst in 50 years — showed no signs of letting up.
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World

Around the world

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.30.2008
ALGERIA
Car bomb explodes short of its target
THENIA — A car loaded with explosives and headed for a police station in northern Algeria exploded Tuesday after officers stopped the attack with bullets. At least two people were killed and 23 wounded, the Interior Ministry said.
Officers opened fire on a vehicle that was speeding toward the local police station in the town of Thenia, some 40 miles east of Algiers. The vehicle exploded short of the building, leaving a 6 1/2-foot-wide crater.
The explosion was the latest in a wave of attacks signaling that Islamic fighters are regrouping in Algeria.
Meanwhile, a report Tuesday said police arrested four people involved in planning the most serious recent attack: twin suicide bombings Dec. 11 in the Algerian capital that killed at least 37 people, 17 of them U.N. workers.
VENEZUELA
Bank robbers' getaway thwarted
ALTAGRACIA DE ORITUCO — Gunmen who held more than 30 hostages inside a Venezuelan bank for over 24 hours fled in an ambulance and were caught Tuesday along a roadside, where they surrendered and freed their last five captives.
The gunmen first let three hostages go and then negotiated with police while holding on to the last two, Guarico state Gov. Eduardo Manuitt said.
"This nightmare is over," Manuitt told state television.
The arrests ended an ordeal that began Monday morning with a botched bank robbery in this town southeast of Caracas.
Under the deal with police, the gunmen were permitted to leave with five hostages who agreed to accompany them, freeing the rest of the captives at the bank.
SAUDI ARABIA
158K chickens killed to head off bird flu
RIYADH — Saudi Arabia said Tuesday it had killed some 158,000 chickens after the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain was found at an infected farm.
The birds were killed in Kharaj province, south of the capital, Riyadh, according to a statement by the Agriculture Ministry. About 475 workers were tested, but no human infections were found.
The ministry also said more than 4.5 million fowl have been killed in provinces around the capital, but it did not specify when the killing took place.
Bird flu resurfaced in November in Kharaj province, in another blow to Saudi Arabia's $10 billion poultry industry.
ECUADOR
Galapagos sea lions clubbed to death
QUITO — Ecuadorean authorities are investigating the clubbing deaths of more than 50 Galapagos Islands sea lions found in January with their skulls cracked, a state prosecutor said Tuesday.
The killings had to be committed by humans, said Jaime Estevez, who called it the work of "the criminal mind of some people who enjoy watching these animals suffer."
Estevez said it will be hard to determine who killed the animals, including 13 pups. There is no permanent guard at the site, La Pinta island at the northern end of the archipelago 625 miles off Ecuador's Pacific coast.
MEXICO
Warrant issued for missing Marine
MEXICO CITY — Mexican officials have ordered police to arrest a U.S. Marine suspected of killing his pregnant colleague and fleeing to Mexico, a U.S. Embassy official said Tuesday. That could lead to his extradition or deportation to the United States.
The embassy official said Mexican officials issued a provisional arrest warrant for Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean, which means authorities can take him into custody, on Monday at the request of U.S. officials. The order was first reported by CNN.
Mexican authorities have been working with the U.S. for weeks on the assumption that Laurean was likely in Mexico. A cousin told reporters last week that Laurean visited his liquor store outside the western city of Guadalajara in mid-January, but left without saying where he was headed.
RUSSIA
Hate crimes called increasingly violent
MOSCOW — Hate crimes in Russia have grown increasingly brutal and deadly, but authorities do little to combat xenophobia, one of the country's leading rights groups said Tuesday.
Last year, 67 people were killed and more than 550 injured across Russia in ethnically motivated attacks, a 13 percent increase on the previous year, according to the annual report by Russia's SOVA rights center, which monitors hate crimes.
"Neo-Nazis are out not to beat up (their victims), but to kill," SOVA's deputy director Galina Kozhevnikova said at a news conference.
Students from Africa, visitors from Asian countries, Jews and Russian anti-Nazi activists have become frequent victims.
Wire reports
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