NATO air support may have killed Brit in Afghanistan

A British Marine killed during a 10-hour battle with Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan this week may have been killed by friendly aircraft firing in support, the military said Thursday.

British troops are battling the Taliban in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province as part of NATO's ISAF force. "Friendly fire" deaths are not unusual in Afghanistan. Canadian, U.S. and Afghan forces have previously lost men because of misguided fire.

On Thursday, a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of foreign troops in the center of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, killing two civilians and wounding 11 more, police and witnesses said.

Mexico City

Chemical used in meth seized

Mexican police seized a large shipment of a chemical used for making methamphetamine Wednesday in the Pacific state of Michoacan, which is at the center of a bloody war between traffickers producing the drug for U.S. markets.

Police in the port of Lazaro Cardenas uncovered 20 tons of ephedrine, a major haul of the tightly controlled chemical, in a shipment from China disguised as another substance, Televisa news channel reported.

Michoacan is a key air and sea point for U.S.-bound cocaine, and mountains inland from the coast are increasingly riddled with methamphetamine labs. A turf war has left a trail of severed heads and corpses as criminal groups battle for control of production and trafficking routes.

Hanoi, Vietnam

U.S. tech expert hit by bike, in coma

An internationally known expert in technology and learning was in a coma Thursday after a traffic accident in Vietnam, where he had been attending a conference.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor emeritus Seymour Papert, 78, was among more than 100 international experts from 30 countries who had gathered in Hanoi this week for a conference on teaching mathematics with digital technology. He was struck by a motorbike while crossing a busy street near his hotel Tuesday, said Hoang Xuan Lan, an administrator at Hanoi Technology University, which is hosting the conference. He underwent brain surgery Wednesday morning, French Hospital officials said.

Papert is an adviser to the "One Laptop Per Child" project, an effort by the MIT Media Lab to provide low-cost computers to children in the developing world.

Also

Kyrgyzstan clash: President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on Thursday called for U.S. troops deployed in the former Soviet nation to be stripped of diplomatic immunity after a U.S. serviceman fatally shot a Kyrgyz civilian.

Fire threat: Australia's military on Thursday rushed to help battle bushfires that threaten to merge into a giant fire in Victoria state in the country's southeast. Australia faces an extreme fire danger this summer after a worsening drought left rural areas bone dry.

"Playboy": The editor of "Playboy Indonesia" went on trial Thursday on charges of distributing indecent pictures to the public and making money from them, which could carry a jail term of up to 32 months.

Seattle Times news services