World briefing

U.S. soldier will face court-martial in deaths

An American soldier charged with murder in the deaths of four bound and blindfolded Iraqis will be court-martialed, the U.S. Army said.

Sgt. John E. Hatley was charged in September with one count of murder, one count of conspiracy to commit murder and one count of obstruction of justice in the killing of four Iraqi men who were found bound, blindfolded, shot and dumped in a Baghdad canal in April 2007.

A message seeking comment from his lawyer was not immediately returned. The 7th U.S. Army Joint Multinational Training Command in Grafenwoehr, Germany, said that a date for the court-martial had not been set.

In previous hearings, Army prosecutors said the four men were killed in retribution for casualties suffered by Hatley's unit. Several other soldiers also have been named in the case.

CANADA

Female soldier to be deported

The first female soldier to flee the U.S. military for Canada to avoid the Iraq war said authorities ordered her deported this month along with her husband and their children, one of which was born in Canada.

Kimberly Rivera said her requests to stay on humanitarian and compassionate grounds were rejected. The family must leave Canada by Jan. 27 unless the order is reversed.

Rivera, a private first class in the Army based at Ft. Carson, Colo., served in Iraq in 2006 and went to Canada the following year after she was ordered to serve another tour. She could be court-martialed when she returns to the U.S. and could face up to five years in prison.

GERMANY

Ex-Nazi too ill for trial, court says

A German court ruled that an elderly former Nazi hit-squad member is medically unfit to stand trial for the World War II reprisal killings of three Dutch civilians.

Defense attorney Gordon Christiansen said Heinrich Boere, 87, suffered from a heart condition and could not take the stress of a trial. He said Boere had "almost died" twice since being charged in April.

Aachen state court spokesman Georg Winkel said in a statement that the decision was based on a thorough two-day medical exam of Boere.

But the Simon Wiesenthal Center's top Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff, questioned whether Boere was truly ill and argued that if Boere had been pursued more vigorously earlier, his health would not have been a factor.

ECUADOR

Galapagos lizard is giant and pink

Scientists have documented a new species in the Galapagos Islands, the iguana "rosada" (pink in Spanish), which may be one of the archipelago's oldest, according to research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Blood and genetic tests on 36 pink iguanas -- which average 3 to 5 feet in length -- show the lizards belong to a previously undiscovered species that appears to live exclusively around Isabela Island's Wolf Volcano.

-- times wire reports