Rescue crews worked through the night to try to retrieve nine miners who have been trapped below ground in southern Peru for days.
The miners have been stuck since Thursday in the Cabeza de Negro mine, the state-run Andina news agency said.
Edgar Ortega, second in command at Peru’s civil defense agency, expressed hope that the miners could be rescued soon.
“My understanding is that we are a little less than 2 meters away,” Ortega said Saturday, according to Andina.
He cautioned there are still risks involved, including the possibility of landslides, as workers …

TOKYO — Japan has deployed missile batteries in Tokyo and dispatched destroyers as North Korea makes final preparations for a rocket launch that could take place this week despite fierce condemnation from across the globe.
Pyongyang says it will launch a satellite for peaceful scientific research between April 12 and 16 to mark the 100th anniversary on April 15 of the birth of founding leader Kim Il-Sung.
But the United States and its allies say it is a disguised missile test and that the launch would contravene UN sanctions aimed at curbing …

Malawi’s state radio announced on Saturday that President Bingu wa Mutharika had died, and Vice-president Joyce Banda prepared to take over as southern Africa’s first female head of state.
The radio announcement confirmed reports by medical and government sources on Friday that the 78-year-old Mutharika had died shortly after a heart attack the previous day.
The delay in the official announcement, as well as the airflifting of Mutharika’s body to South Africa on Thursday, had aroused suspicions about the succession process in the impoverished southern African nation.
The United States, which has been …

More than 2,300 Syrians have fled into Turkey since Wednesday, officials there have said, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon warns the crisis is escalating.
The figure is more than twice the highest previous one-day total in March, when more than 1,000 people crossed over the border.
Earlier, the UN called for the Syrian government to “urgently” implement an agreed ceasefire.
Meanwhile, activists said troops have attacked a Damascus suburb.
Blasts and gunfire rocked the suburb, Douma, on Thursday in an assault which the opposition said showed an intensification of violence.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who …

Syrian troops targeted various neighborhoods Thursday as United Nations’ peacekeepers are scheduled to arrive in the nation to discuss deploying observers to monitor a cease-fire.
An advance peacekeeping team heading to Damascus for talks is expected to arrive Thursday, according to a spokesman for the U.N.-Arab League joint envoy Kofi Annan.
As the team heads to the nation, fresh violence erupted nationwide, killing at least five.
Security forces fired at a car in a Damascus neighborhood of Kfar Shams, killing two people, according to the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Three soldiers died …