Print

Mail

wiki links

World News Quick Take

■ Afghanistan
Bomber attacks US convoy
A suicide car bomber attacked an US convoy in the east yesterday and as many as eight Afghan civilians died in the blast or ensuing US gunfire, sparking a large protest, officials said. Two NATO soldiers were killed, meanwhile, during combat in the south yesterday. The suicide bomber hit the US convoy with a minivan, said Noor Agha Zawok, the spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar Province. Zawak said US soldiers opened fire after the attack, killing or wounding some Afghan civilians. Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the chief of Shinwar district, said six Afghans were killed and six injured. A police spokesman said eight died. It wasn't clear if the Afghans died from the suicide blast or gunfire from US soldiers.

■ China
Advisor tired of smelly taxis
Beijing taxi drivers should stop eating and sleeping in their cabs as the smells they make could tarnish the city's image during the 2008 Olympic Games, a political advisor was quoted yesterday as saying by state media. About one-third of the taxis in Beijing were smelly, Shi Xiangpeng (施祥鵬), a Hong Kong representative at the annual session of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying. "Sometimes I could smell an unbearable stink once I got into the cab, but was afraid of being too rude to get off immediately. So I had to roll down the windows, regardless of how cold it was outside," Shi said. Xinhua said Beijing has 2.9 million registered motor vehicles, including 67,000 taxis.

■ India
Australian convicted in Goa
A court in Panaji has convicted an Australian of sexually abusing young boys in the tourist hub of Goa. In his ruling on Saturday, Sessions Judge Anand Salkar said he would sentence Warner Wulf Ingo, 44, on Wednesday. Ingo faces a maximum of life sentence in prison. Ingo was an important link in a pedophile racket busted by police 16 years ago, according to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India's federal investigating agency. It operated at an orphanage in Fatorda, the CBI said. Ingo fled to Australia, but he was arrested in Sydney and brought back to India in 2005.

■ Pakistan
Bombs explode after threats
Two bombs targeting barber shops and a music store exploded in the northwestern Bajur tribal region, where Islamic militants have issued threats against shaving beards and selling music, a security official said yesterday. One bomb exploded late on Saturday while the other went off before dawn yesterday in Inayat Kalay, a market town, said Muwaz Khan, a government security official in the region.

■ Thailand
Potential H5NI case reported
A woman who fell ill last month in Bangkok is probably the second human victim of bird flu in Laos, although conclusive tests are still pending, a Health Ministry official said yesterday. Laboratory results showed that the woman, from VientianeProvince, tested positive for an H5-type flu virus -- but it will take about six more days to know if she has the H5N1 subtype, Bounlay Phommasack said by telephone. Bounlay said it is almost certain that the woman has H5N1, as she lives near a village which had poultry infected with the virus. Officials late last month confirmed the country's first known human case of bird flu.

■ Russia
Building collapse kills two
A Moscow building under repair collapsed on Saturday, killing two people and triggering a search for several others feared trapped, emergency officials said. The accident happened on Saturday evening when flooring in the building in central Moscow fell down, said Yevgeny Bobylev, spokesman for city emergency officials. Bobylev said emergency workers found two dead bodies under the rubble, rescued one man and were searching for two others who were believed to be inside.

■ Morocco
Bus accident kills nine
A bus skidded off a treacherous north-central mountain road killing nine people and injuring 45 others, hospital officials in Meknes, near the accident site, said on Saturday. The hospital officials said they were not authorized to give any more information about the victims. The accident happened outside the town of Khenifra late morning, apparently caused by high speeds and a mechanical problem, the official MAP news agency reported, citing unidentified local officials. Several ambulances were rushed to the scene to evacuate the wounded to Mohammed V Hospital in Meknes, the nearest large city, MAP said.

■ Turkey
Youths firebomb buses
Protesters threw firebombs at three buses in Istanbul on Saturday, incinerating one of them and injuring a driver, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported. The private Dogan news agency said a group of about 50 protesters shouted slogans in favor of the banned Kurdish rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), as the buses burned. Two of the buses were attacked as they were moving, and the other one was stopped on the road and its passengers forced to exit before it was attacked with Molotov cocktails, the Anatolia news agency said. Similar attacks by Kurdish youths on buses in Istanbul have occurred before.

■ Tunisia
Terrorist's sentence upheld
The nation's highest court upheld a 20-year prison term for an accomplice in a suicide attack on a synagogue that killed 21 people -- mostly German tourists, a defense lawyer said. Belgacem Nawar, 45, was convicted for helping his nephew Nizar Nawar strap a gas tank onto a truck before ramming it into the historic synagogue on the resort island of Djerba in April 2002. The Court of Cassation upheld an appeals verdict following the conviction last June. Tunisian investigators linked the attack to al-Qaeda. Nawar was detained shortly after the attack, which killed 14 Germans, five Tunisians and two French citizens. Nawar, a welder from Djerba, acknowledged having helped his nephew buy the truck, but said he had no idea what he planned to do with it.

■ Egypt
TV host flees to London
The woman known as the "Oprah Winfrey of the Middle East" has fled to London in fear for her safety amid a row over allegations that actresses were paid to pretend they were prostitutes on her television show. Hala Sarhan is believed to have left Egypt aboard the private jet of Saudi billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal when it became clear that the government wanted her arrested. Speaking on Saturday, Sarhan called her accusers "bastards, creeps and liars" and vowed to meet them in court.

■ United States
Famous Vegas casino sold
Owners of Las Vegas' Sahara Hotel and Casino, a hangout of Hollywood's 1960s "Rat Pack" -- an informal group of entertainers that included Frank Sinatra -- and the setting of the original Ocean's Eleven film, have agreed to sell the aging property to an investor group. Officials from Los Angeles-based SBE Entertainment Group and San Mateo, California-based Stockbridge Real Estate Funds said they've entered into a contract to purchase the Moroccan-themed casino and hotel from Gordon Gaming. The Sahara is one of the oldest properties on Las Vegas' famed "Strip." It lost its high-end clientele as upscale development on the Strip moved south.

■ United States
Stolen puppies returned
Four purebred Yorkshire terriers stolen at gunpoint from a Los Angeles home more than a week ago were returned to their owners after a man turned himself in to police. Three puppies, valued at US$2,500 each, and a full-grown dog were reunited with their owners on Saturday night. One puppy remained missing, police said. The animals were recovered after Ryan Betton, 19, surrendered to police on Friday night, Detective Luis Corona said. The puppies had been advertised for sale and two men posing as buyers came to see them, pulling a gun on the family and taking the dogs.

■ United States
Cherokees oust citizens
Cherokee Nation members have voted to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 descendants of people the Cherokee Indians owned as slaves. The amendment to the tribal Constitution will limit citizenship to descendants "by blood" of tribe members. Some opponents of the ballot argued that attempts to remove freedmen from the tribe were motivated by racism. The petition drive for the ballot measure followed a ruling last year by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court that said an 1866 treaty assured freedmen descendants of tribal citizenship. Since then, more than 2,000 descendants of freedmen have enrolled as citizens of the tribe.

■ United States
Body parts delivered
Two packages containing human body parts -- including a liver and a partial head -- that were intended for a lab were delivered to a home instead, and officials say more than two dozen similar packages could be dispersed across the country. The body parts, sent from China, were mistakenly dropped off on Thursday at a Cascade Township, Michigan, home. "My husband started to unwrap one and said, `This is strange, it looks like a liver,'" Ludivine Larmande told the Grand Rapids Press. The sheriff's department said on Saturday it did not have any additional information about the case. Two other packages headed to the lab broke open, scattering their contents.

■ United States
Dinasaur species dug up
A new dinosaur species was a plant-eater with meter-long horns, suggesting an evolutionary middle step between older dinosaurs with even larger horns and the small-horned creatures that followed, experts said. The dinosaur's horns, thick as a human arm, are like those of triceratops -- which came 10 million years later. Michael Ryan, curator of vertebrate paleontology for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, published the discovery in this month's Journal of Paleontology. He dug up the fossil six years ago in Alberta, Canada. Ryan named the new dinosaur Albertaceratops nesmoi.

This story has been viewed 1713 times.