■ Iran
Khatami orders inquest
Iran's President Mohammed Khatami ordered four ministers on Sunday to investigate the death of a Canadian freelance photographer who had been arrested outside a Tehran prison, the ISNA student news agency said. Montreal-based Zahra Kazemi, 54, a Canadian of Iranian descent, died on Friday of what relatives and friends say were head injuries and Iranian officials called a "brain attack." She was detained last month for taking pictures of Tehran's notorious Evin prison, where many dissidents are jailed, and later taken to a hospital.
■ Zimbabwe
UN won't arrest torturer
The UN has refused to arrest a Zimbabwean police officer accused of torture who is currently working for it in Kosovo as a member of an international training team. The UN was informed in early June that the alleged torturer, Detective Inspector Henry Dowa, was working for it in Prizren, Kosovo, but it declined to take any action, according to documents obtained by reporters. Dowa has been named by several Zimbabwean torture victims as having directed and carried out beatings with fists, boots and pickaxe handles, and as having administered electric shocks to the point of convulsions, at Harare police station.
■ Israel
Palestinians impoverished
A Palestinian Authority official said Sunday that 70 percent of Palestinian families live below the poverty line due to what she termed oppressive measures by the Israeli army. Palestinian Authority Minister of Social Affairs Intissar Al-Wazir, better known as Oum Jihad, said that the Israeli Army siege and closures had caused deteriorating living conditions in the West bank and the Gaza Strip. She said that more than 70 percent of the Palestinians in different parts of the Palestinian territories are below the poverty line, while the unemployment ratio had reached 65 percent in the strip and 55 percent in the West Bank.
■ Spain
Police defuse bomb
Police defused a bomb in a hotel in the northern city of Pamplona on Sunday where thousands of tourists celebrated the famed San Fermin festival. Police said the bomb was found in a women's bathroom at the Maisonnave hotel in Pamplona's old quarter. The hotel is popular with tourists thronging the city for the annual running of the bulls and other festival events. An anonymous caller who tipped off police to the 4kg bomb said it was in retaliation for the hotel's refusal to pay "protection" money, according to the national news agency Efe. Citing government sources, Efe said the caller identified himself as a member of the armed Basque separatist group ETA.
Agencies
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