■ Pakistan
Muslim leader arrested
Police on Sunday arrested a member of an outlawed Shiite Muslim militant group for his suspected involvement in the killings of several senior clerics from the rival Sunni sect, an official said. Ammar Raza Naqvi, an alleged member of the Sipah-e-Mohammed organization, was arrested in a raid on a hideout in Karachi's eastern Malir neighborhood, a senior police officer in Karachi said. Police seized an assault rifle, one pistol and two grenades during the raid while three other men, suspected to be Naqvi's accomplices, fled, the officer said.
■ Pakistan
Suspected US spy killed
Suspected Islamic militants shot dead a Pakistani tribesman whom they accused of spying for the US, in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, an intelligence official said yesterday. Villagers found the man's body by the side of a road near Satar Sarobi, a village south of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal area, the official said. The victim had been shot in the head and chest and a note written in the local Pashto language that was left with the body warned, "Those who spy for America will meet the same end."
■ India
Maoist rebels kill four
Suspected communist rebels shot and killed a lawmaker, two of his bodyguards and a civilian at a soccer match in Jharkhand state, an official said. Sunil Mahato, 38, was watching the game as part of celebrations to mark the Hindu festival of Holi in the town of Bakudia late on Sunday when the gunmen opened fire, Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda told reporters. Mahato was hit by seven bullets, local police chief Pankaj Darad said. Eyewitnesses said that 15 gunmen were involved in the attack. Officials blamed Maoist rebels, known as Naxalites from the Naxalbari region where the movement was born, for killing Mahato, who was the General-Secretary of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha party and a member of parliament.
■ New Zealand
Two convicted of rape
Two more men were sentenced to prison yesterday for rape and child sex abuse that went on for decades on remote Pitcairn Island, home to a handful of descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers. Brian Michael John Young, 53, was sentenced yesterday in the Pitcairn Supreme Court sitting in Auckland, New Zealand to six-and-a-half years in prison after being convicted earlier on six counts of rape and three counts of indecent assault. Shawn Brent Christian, 31, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison on two charges of rape and one of aiding and abetting rape.
■ Vanuatu
State of emergency declared
A state of emergency was declared yesterday after ethnic clashes at a squatter settlement, reportedly over claims of witchcraft, left two men dead and eight in hospital, officials said. Armed police arrested more than 100 people after the violence broke out on Saturday at the Blacksands settlement that houses thousands of people outside the capital, Port Vila and were maintaining a heavy presence there to prevent further violence, police spokesman Willie Ben said. Dozens of armed personnel from the Vanuatu Mobile Force were at the Blacksands settlement yesterday where arrests for unlawful assembly, assault and property damage were continuing, Ben said.
■ France
Jets fire on rebels in Birao
French Mirage jets fired on Sunday on rebels who attacked a small group of French military advisers in the Central African Republic, causing an unspecified number of rebel casualties, a Defense Ministry official said. Firing cannon and dropping bombs, the planes destroyed several pickup trucks used by rebels who had attacked a military compound where the French contingent is stationed near the town of Birao, said Commander Christophe Prazuck. No French soldiers were injured, but there "surely" were injuries among the rebels, he said, adding that a damage assessment had not been completed. At least two rebels were killed, a rebel spokesman in Birao said. The exchange of fire came a day after rebels re-entered the town.
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