World datelines

Sudan: Home from Gitmo

A Sudanese aid worker whose detention without charge at Guantanamo inspired a well-organized campaign for his release — including a YouTube video featuring actor Martin Sheen — returned home Thursday after more than five years in custody.

The United States announced late Wednesday that Adel Hassan Hamad, another Sudanese prisoner and 13 Afghans had been released, reducing the number of men still held at Guantanamo to about 290.

Hamad and Salim Mahmoud Adam spoke to reporters at the Khartoum airport, complaining of their treatment at Guantanamo and expressing fear about the health of a fellow Sudanese prisoner — a journalist from Al-Jazeera TV — who is on hunger strike at the U.S. military prison in Cuba.

Canada: N-reactor revived

OTTAWA — Canada's state-owned atomic energy company said Thursday it is restarting a nuclear reactor whose shutdown created a critical shortage of radioactive isotopes used to diagnose and treat cancer patients in Canada, the United States and many other nations.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. said it expected to begin producing the medical isotopes within seven or eight days.

The announcement came a day after the Canadian government scrambled to pass legislation allowing the company to bypass Canada's nuclear safety watchdog and immediately restart the 50-year-old reactor at Chalk River, Ontario.

China: Notorious anniversary

BEIJING — Sirens sounded and students stood at attention Thursday to mark the 70th anniversary of Japan's notorious wartime massacre of civilians in the Chinese city of Nanjing.

The commemoration, which comes as China's government pushes to improve relations with Tokyo and avoid inflaming nationalist passions at home, brought the city to a standstill, state television showed.

The city reopened a vastly expanded memorial to the victims of the massacre long known in the West as the "Rape of Nanking."

Dominican Republic: Olga anger

SANTIAGO — Survivors of a devastating flood lashed out at authorities Thursday for not warning that a dam's floodgates were being opened during Tropical Storm Olga, unleashing a deadly wall of water that killed as many as 20 people.