Gwinnett Daily Post

S. Korean ship sinks, N. Korea threatens war

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea, accused of waging the deadliest attack on the South Korean military since the Korean War, flatly denied sinking a warship Thursday and warned that retaliation would mean ‘‘all-out war.’’

Evidence presented Thursday to prove North Korea fired a torpedo that sank a South Korean ship was fabricated by Seoul, North Korean naval spokesman Col. Pak In Ho told broadcaster APTN in an exclusive interview in Pyongyang.

He warned that any move to sanction or strike North Korea would be met with force.

‘‘If (South Korea) tries to deal any retaliation or punishment, or if they try sanctions or a strike on us .... we will answer to this with all-out war,’’ he told APTN.

Wreckage seen on Afghan mountainside

KABUL, Afghanistan — Search craft on Thursday spotted the torn-apart wreckage of a commercial airliner that disappeared Monday while flying over Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains with 44 people on board, including six foreigners, officials said.

Photos supplied by NATO forces show the plane was broken into four pieces strewn across a steep mountainside — suggesting survival is unlikely. It wasn’t clear whether any of the helicopters flying over the crash site for much of the day were able to land on the rugged terrain.

Poor weather and the rugged mountain terrain hampered the search.

Millions in painting stolen from Paris museum

PARIS — A thief stole five paintings valued at more than $100 million, including major works by Picasso and Matisse, in an overnight heist Thursday at a Paris modern art museum with a broken alarm system, officials said.

The paintings disappeared early Thursday from the Paris Museum of Modern Art, across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower in one of the French capital’s most chic and tourist-frequented neighborhoods.

The museum’s alarm system had been broken since March 30 in some rooms, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said in a statement. The security system operator ordered spare parts to fix it but had not yet received the equipment from the supplier, the statement said.

— From wire reports