Sat, Jul 02, 2005 - Page 7 News List

World News Quick Take

AGENCIES

■ Turkey

Bombing suspect shot

Police shot dead a suspected suicide bomber near Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's office in Ankara yesterday. Television showed live footage of police shooting at the man, said to be around 35 years old, in a street in the leafy central district of the capital. A reporter saw the man lying dead in a pool of blood. Witnesses said the suspected bomber had been unable to detonate his explosives. The incident revived memories of four devastating suicide bomb attacks in Turkey's largest city Istanbul in November 2003. More than 60 people were killed in those attacks.

■ Zimbabwe

Demolition turns deadly

The Zimbabwe police finished demolishing a squatter camp outside Harare that once had at least 10,000 residents on Thursday, killing as many as four people, a day after a UN envoy met with President Robert Mugabe to discuss the refugee crisis that similar mass evictions have set off. After three days of work, the police destroyed and burned the remains of the Portafarm settlement. Mugabe's government established the camp more than a decade ago for homeless peasants who had migrated to the city seeking work. Human rights and charitable groups said two women had died in the demolition.

■ Kenya

Displaced citizen gets home

A man who has lived for more than a year at Nairobi's international airport to protest being denied entry to Britain has finally been granted UK citizenship and plans to fly there within days. In a real-life African version of Tom Hanks' movie The Terminal, Sanjai Shah, 43, has been eating cafeteria food, sleeping on plastic transit lounge chairs, and showering in arrival hall toilets since May last year. Shah obtained a British Overseas Citizen passport since he was born in Kenya when it was under colonial rule. But when he flew to England without a return ticket or sufficient funds, he was deported with "prohibited immigrant" stamped in his passport -- negating the document.

■ Croatia

Coffee foils robbery

A shop clerk armed with a pair of scissors and a cup of coffee foiled a robbery in the capital Zagreb on Thursday, state news agency Hina reported. A man in a motorcycle helmet entered the corner shop brandishing a knife and told the cashier to hand over the money in the cash register, Hina said, quoting a police report. "The collected and brave shop-clerk, 50, pointed a pair of scissors at him, then took a cup of hot coffee in her other hand and poured it on him," the report said. The robber, who is believed to have suffered burns, ran off with only the clerk's mobile phone.

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