The News Journal from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 3

www.delawareonline.com MONDAY JANUARY 7, 2008 THE NEWS JOURNAL A3 i Search for missing hiker scaled back; bloody tops found Police: Suspect tried to use her credit card urn V' 1 i JJ. LVjh Lii- it )2 APHADI MIZBAN An Iraqi man places flowers in the barrel of a soldier's gun during an Army Day celebration Sunday in central Baghdad, Iraq. The man was killed moments later by a suicide bombing that Iraqi police say killed 11 people. 3 Iraqi soldiers sacrifice themselves against bomb Attempt to stop terrorist attack saved lives, U.S. says By ERRIN HAINES Associated Press ATLANTA The search for a 24-year-old hiker who disappeared from the northern Georgia woods on New Year's Day will be scaled back, authorities said Sunday.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said the search for Meredith Emerson will not stop, but that only trained search-and-rescue individuals and law enforcement will be involved today. Authorities believe Emerson is no longer alive. "We're not going to be using volunteers starting tomorrow," Bankhead said. "Given the scenario and the fact that it's a recovery effort, the mission has changed." Also today, the man accused of abudcting Emerson is scheduled to appear in court. Authorities served a warrant Saturday evening charging Gary Michael Hilton, 61, with kidnapping with bodily injury.

More than 150 people fanned out in the northern Georgia woods Sunday looking for Emerson's body. Investigators had recovered three bloody fleece tops like the kind she wore and said they held out little hope of finding her alive. Hilton, who investigators have said was the last person seen with Emerson on the trail, was detained Friday after trying to use Emerson's credit card, according to the warrant. The bloody fleece tops and a bloodstained piece of a car's seat belt were found in a trash bin beside a convenience store where Hilton had used a pay phone, the warrant stated. Hilton had attempted to vacuum and wash portions of his 2001 Chevrolet Astro van, which was found without the rear seat belt, according to the document.

Gary Michael Hilton, 6i the last person seen with Meredith Emerson, is being held in connection with her disappearance while hiking in a state park. OH THE NET Meredith Emerson search www.helpfindmeredith.com Hilton was already in federal custody near Atlanta, held on a warrant for failure to appear in court on a charge of abandoning property in a national park. He was not cooperating with authorities, Bankhead said. Union County Officer Gayle Bachelor declined to allow a reporter to speak with him by phone. Search teams focused again Sunday on a 5-square-mile area of mountainous terrain about 90 miles north of Atlanta in the Chattahoochee National Forest, near where Emerson's car was discovered Wednesday, Bankhead said.

The search had been focused on Vogel State Park, at the base of Blood Mountain, where Emerson was last seen on New Year's Day hiking with her black Labrador retriever, Ella. The dog was found 50 miles away Friday in a grocery store parking lot in Cumming, a suburb north of Atlanta, and identified using an implanted microchip. Vogel is one of Georgia's oldest and most popular state parks. The area includes a segment of the Appalachian Trail, the famous hiking route that stretches from Georgia to Maine. Results in former Soviet republic called fraudulent TBILISI, Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili won a second term as Georgia's president Sunday in an election that thousands of opposition protesters denounced as fraudulent, threatening instability in this former Soviet republic once considered a beacon of reform.

For the pro-Western Saakashvili, the prospect of unrest is an ironic echo of the mass demonstrations that swept him into office four years ago as a champion of democracy fighting rigged elections. An observer mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe gave the election a mixed assessment, calling it a significant step for democracy while pointing to an array of violations. Kenya's opposition leader willing to share power NAIROBI, Kenya Kenya's opposition leader on Sunday signaled he is willing to share power with the government he accuses of rigging elections, but at the same time called for mass rallies a move that threatens renewed bloodletting. Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who claims incumbent President Mwai Kibaki stole the vote, told reporters he was ready to talk about sharing power, but only through a mediator empowered to negotiate an agreement that the international community would guarantee. Chavez promises to fight crime, clean up garbage CARACAS, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez vowed Sunday to tackle everyday problems from soaring crime to trash-strewn streets, adopting a more pragmatic approach to governance and toning down his revolutionary rhetoric a month after a stinging electoral defeat.

Voters in December rejected a radical overhaul of Venezuela's constitution that would have greatly expanded Chavez's powers and enshrined socialism. Chavez acknowledged his government would have to review its priorities. Islamic militants suspects in slaying of tribal leaders ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -Suspected Islamic militants killed eight tribal leaders involved in efforts to broker a cease-fire between security forces and insurgents in northwestern Pakistan, a security official said Monday. The men were shot in separate attacks late Sunday and early Monday in South Waziristan, a mountainous region close to Afghanistan where al-Qaida and Taliban militants are know to operate, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Boy charged with beating toddler to death with bat LAUDERfflLL, Ha.

A 12-year-old boy beat a toddler to death with a baseball bat because she was crying while he was trying to watch TV, authorities said. The boy, who was not identified, was arrested Saturday on first-degree murder charges, Lauderhill police said. He was arraigned in juvenile court Sunday and remained in custody, but it was not clear if he had an attorney or if anyone else would be charged in the girl's death. Cochran said the boy told authorities he was home alone Friday baby-sitting a 10-year-old and the 17-month-old girl and became angry when the toddler began to cry. The relationship among the three was not clear.

From Associated Press reports ians were giving flowers to soldiers and sticking them in the muzzles of their guns," recalled Mizban, an Iraqi national. "It was a jubilant scene." Afterward, he said, the street was littered with bodies, weapons and shoes. Dazed soldiers and policemen carried their bloodied colleagues to nearby pickup trucks that whisked them to a hospital. "There was a severed head on the street and some of the soldiers that I was photographing earlier were dead. Those who survived panicked, pulling back from the scene and shooting in the air," said the 40-year-old Mizban.

Among the dead were four police officers, three Iraqi soldiers and four civilians, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. At least 17 people were injured. A U.S. military statement said five people were killed. In the north in the Iraqi city of Mosul, meanwhile, three apparently coordinated explosions targeted two Christian churches and a convent, wounding four people, local officials and the U.S.

military said. Al-Qaida video calls for attacks on Bush Al-Qaida's American spokesman urged fighters to meet President Bush with bombs when he visits the Middle East according to a new video posted Sunday on the Internet U.S.-bom Adam Gadahn also tore up his American passport as part of a symbolic protest in the nearly hour-long tape -al-Qaida's first message of the new year. The release comes just three days before Bush is scheduled to arrive in Israel for a weeklong trip. "Now we direct an urgent call to our militant brothers in Muslim Palestine and the Arab peninsula to be ready to receive the Crusader slayer Bush in his visit to Muslim Palestine and the Arab peninsula in the beginning of January and to receive him not with flowers or clapping but with bombs and booby-trapped vehicles," Gadahn, 29, said in Arabic. By BRADLEY BROOKS Associated Press BAGHDAD Three Iraqi soldiers threw themselves on a suicide attacker wearing an explosives vest at an Army Day celebration Sunday an act of heroism the U.S.

said likely prevented many more deaths. Iraqi police said at least 11 people were killed in the blast, the deadliest in a series of bombings in Baghdad. One of the attacks in the capital killed an American soldier -one of two U.S. deaths announced on Sunday. Shortly before the bomber struck the Army Day festivities, about two dozen Iraqi soldiers were standing outside the offices of a local nongovernmental agency demonstrating for unity in Iraq.

The troops, their AK-47 rifles raised in the air, chanted pro-army slogans and a common anti-insurgent taunt: "Where are the terrorists today?" Associated Press photographer Hadi Mizban was about five yards away from the suicide attacker when he blew himself up on the narrow street in the central Karradah area. "The blast happened as civil Lean Live. Are You a Candidate for You don't have to live here to have good Cabinet Advisors. Featuring i A "Ty, wmr (flint wm rmi.T Custom Cabinets Weight Loss Surgery? Speak with the experts and learn about the Lap-Band System and Gastric Bypass surgery from the board-certified surgeons of CHRIAS, the most experienced practice in Delaware offering surgical options to tackle morbid obesity. Start by attending our next FREE seminar Call CHRIAS at (302) 892-9900 for more Information, Entertainment Centers Bathrooms Home Office Designs iir A Kitchen Design InstallationRemodeling The Kitchen'Factory 02477-1 Cii Wynn MO, Mchul Mr, Jr.

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