World Scene


Thursday, January 1, 2009

IRAN

Militant students want to fight Israel

TEHRAN | Hard-line Iranian student groups have asked the government to authorize volunteers to go carry out suicide bombings in Israel in response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had not responded to the call by Wednesday. Volunteer suicide groups have made similar requests in the past, and the government never responded to their calls.

The groups' activities appear to be mainly for propaganda purposes, and there has been no sign of Iranians preparing for suicide attacks in Israel.

Five hard-line student groups and a hard-line clerical group launched a registration drive on Monday, seeking volunteers to carry out suicide attacks against Israel.

DENMARK

Mall gunman targets Israelis

COPENHAGEN | A gunman wounded two Israelis working at a packed central Denmark shopping mall Wednesday, Danish police said.

One of the wounded was shot in the arm and the other in the leg, police said. Their condition is not clear.

The shooting took place at the Rosengaard mall in Odense, 105 miles west of Copenhagen. It took place about 3:30 p.m., when the mall was filled with people doing last-minute shopping before the New Year's break.

PAKISTAN

Troops kill three militants

PESHAWAR | Pakistani troops killed three militants in an operation to secure the major supply route to U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, an official said Wednesday.

The route through the famed Khyber Pass remained closed for a second day because of the operation, but will hopefully reopen soon, said Fazal Mahmood, a local official.

The U.S. military has praised the campaign and said the temporary closure of the road was not a problem.

Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan rely on the winding, mountainous road for delivery of up to 75 percent of their fuel, food and other goods, which arrive in Pakistan via the port city of Karachi.

INDONESIA

Court acquits spy of murder charge

JAKARTA | An Indonesian court on Wednesday acquitted a former intelligence official of the murder of a prominent rights activist, in a case which was seen as a key test of state accountability and commitment to the rule of law.

Muchdi Purwoprandjono, a former deputy chief of Indonesia's National Intelligence Agency, was found not guilty of abusing his powers and assigning an agent to poison Munir Thalib, an outspoken critic of the country's military.

Mr. Munir died of arsenic poisoning on a flight in 2004. His widow and supporters have long pressed the authorities to investigate his death and bring those responsible to justice.

VIETNAM

Border dispute settled with China

HANOI | Vietnam and China said on Wednesday they had finished demarcating their land border, a diplomatic milestone for the communist neighbors who fought a brief but brutal war along the frontier 30 years ago.

Vietnamese and Chinese leaders had set a deadline to complete the task by the end of 2008, and negotiators announced with less than six hours to go that the goal had been achieved, underscoring the sensitivity of the territorial dispute between the two countries with a checkered past.

A more thorny maritime territorial dispute was not mentioned by the negotiators or in a joint statement on Wednesday.

The two sides agreed to work closely together and cooperate to protect peace and stability in the border area.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...cene-28379167/

World Scene


Friday, January 2, 2009

ZECH REPUBLIC

President to lead EU for six months

PRAGUE | The Czech Republic took over the rotating European Union presidency Thursday, with the bloc aiming to see its new governance treaty approved in 2009.

At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, authorities illuminated central Prague's giant metronome know as the "Time Machine" in the Czech colors of red, white and blue and the EU blue flag with yellow stars.

President Vaclav Klaus -- the most outspoken Czech critic of the treaty -- said the EU presidency would give the country a chance "to influence the activity of this important organization."

During Czech presidency of the bloc, Mr. Klaus has vowed not to fly the EU flag over Prague Castle because, he said, the country "is not an EU province."

ITALY

Anti-Nazi spy dead at 96

ROME | Paul Hofmann, an Austrian who informed on his Nazi commanders in occupied Rome and later became a New York Times correspondent and author, has died, the newspaper reported Thursday. He was 96.

Mr. Hofmann died in Rome on Tuesday, the Times quoted his son, Alexander Hofmann-Lord, as saying.

Mr. Hoffman was drafted into the German army and posted to Rome, where he worked as the personal interpreter for two successive Nazi commanders, Gen. Rainer Stahel and Gen. Kurt Maelzer, the Times said.

After befriending members of Rome's anti-Fascist Resistance, Mr. Hofmann passed information gleaned from his work onto the underground, including intelligence on the deportation of Jews from Rome and the killing of 335 Italians at the Ardeatine Caves on the outskirts of Rome, the Times said.

Mr. Hofmann eventually deserted, hid his family and after the war worked for the Times for nearly 50 years.

AFGHANISTAN

Taliban ambush kills 20 police

KANDAHAR | Taliban militants ambushed a group of police while they were eating lunch in remote southern Afghanistan, killing 20 and fatally shooting the mother of one as she pleaded unsuccessfully for her son's life, an official said Thursday.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said two militants were killed and four wounded in the ambush Wednesday in Helmand province. Mr. Ahmadi claimed 32 police were killed, but Afghan officials put the toll at 20, plus the mother.

Afghan police have less training and weapons than Afghan soldiers, and they often bear the brunt of Taliban attacks. At least 870 police were killed in attacks in 2008, including the 20 in Helmand. About 925 died in 2007.

Violence in Afghanistan has spiked in the past two years, and Taliban militants now control wide swaths of countryside.

SOUTH AFRICA

Apartheid foe Suzman dead at 91

JOHANNESBURG | Helen Suzman, who died Thursday at age 91, became the white face of opposition to apartheid as she tirelessly battled South Africa's then-minority regime in parliament for 36 years.

The daughter of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, Mrs. Suzman led what she described as a privileged life, before becoming politically aware of the deep racial injustice scarring her country while studying the plight of African migrant laborers in university.

"I was appalled. It was this experience that brought me into politics," she later wrote in her autobiography.

She went on to lead an uphill and sometimes lonely battle opposing racist laws in parliament and visiting political prisoners, including South Africa's most famous - Nelson Mandela, who became president.

DENMARK

Danish man held after Israelis shot

COPENHAGEN | A Danish man of Middle Eastern origin was arrested in central Denmark on Thursday for shooting and injuring two Israelis at a local shopping center a day earlier, police said.

"He turned himself in to the police at 5:20 a.m. this morning and was arrested," Fyn police Chief John Jacobsen told Agence France-Presse, identifying the suspected shooter as "a 27-year-old Danish citizen of Middle Eastern origin."

Two Israelis who were reportedly selling Dead Sea hair and skin products at a stand inside a shopping center were shot Wednesday afternoon.

One was seriously injured in the arm and had been operated at the Odense hospital, while the other was hit in the leg but was only slightly injured, the Politiken daily reported on its Web site.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...cene-72802593/

__________________
Marwatone.

World Scene


Saturday, January 3, 2009

BAHAMAS

Travolta teen son dead in accident

NASSAU | Police said John Travolta's teenage son has died after injuring himself at the actor's vacation home.

Police spokeswoman Loretta Mackey said Jett Travolta, 16, hit his head in a bathtub Friday morning. She said he was declared dead at Rand Memorial Hospital on Grand Bahama Island.

Jett was the oldest child of Mr. Travolta and his wife, actress Kelly Preston, who also have an 8-year-old daughter.

GREECE

Crew repels pirates with fire hoses

associated press An extremely rare 1937 Bugatti Type 57S Atalante was discovered by relatives in Gosforth, England, after the death of the owner, an elderly doctor who last used it around 1960.

ATHENS | Crewmen fired high-pressure water jets Friday to fight off heavily armed Somali pirates trying to board a Greek oil tanker in the dangerous Gulf of Aden, officials said. It was the fourth pirate attack of the new year.

Armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, pirates in three speedboats twice tried to board the Greek-flagged Kriti Episkopi but were driven away when the crew turned fire hoses on them and EU aircraft scrambled from a nearby European Union naval flotilla to help, shipping company and Greek government officials said.

The attack came a day after Somali pirates seized an Egyptian cargo ship and its 28 crew members in the waterway, one of the world's most important sea routes. Also Thursday, a Malaysian military helicopter saved an Indian tanker from being hijacked and a French warship thwarted an attack on a Panamanian cargo ship and captured several pirates.

BRITAIN

Rare car found in dead man's garage

LONDON | Relatives of Dr. Harold Carr found an extremely rare 1937 Bugatti Type 57S Atalante -- a Holy Grail for car collectors -- as they were going through his belongings after his death.

The dusty two-seater, unused since 1960, didn't look like much in the garage in Gosforth, near Newcastle in northern England.

But only 17 were ever made, and when it's cleaned up and auctioned in Paris next month, experts believe it will fetch at least $4.3 million and possibly much more.

The Bugatti supercar was so ahead of its time it could go up to 130 mph when most other cars topped out at about 50 mph. This particular car is even more valuable because it was originally owned by Earl Howe, a prominent British race-car driver.

Dr. Carr, an orthopedic surgeon who died at age 89, was described by relatives as an eccentric hoarder.

BELGIUM

Parliament approves new government

BRUSSELS | Belgium's prime minister won a parliamentary vote of confidence Friday for a coalition government to replace one that collapsed in December in a bank bailout scandal.

Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy's government puts together the parties -- including Christian Democrats, Liberals and Socialists -- that made up the previous one. The legislature voted 88-45 to approve the new government.

Mr. Van Rompuy succeed fellow Christian Democrat Yves Leterme, who quit as prime minister Dec. 19 along with his justice minister, Jo Vandeurzen. They resigned following allegations they had interfered in a court case regarding the sale of Fortis, once Belgium's largest bank, to France's BNP Paribas.

ZIMBABWE

Judge keeps activists in custody

HARARE | A judge ruled Friday that a respected human-rights campaigner and 31 other activists accused of plotting to overthrow President Robert Mugabe should remain in custody over the weekend.

Opposition leaders say the detention of Zimbabwe Peace Project leader Jestina Mukoko is part of Mr. Mugabe's clampdown on the country's pro-democracy movement.

High Court Judge Alphias Chitakunye rejected an application for the activists' immediate release and said they should stay in custody until they appear in the magistrates' court Monday.

The defense argued that police have defied at least two court orders to free the activists and have ignored a magistrate's ruling that they be allowed visits from private doctors after appearing in court with swollen and bloodied faces.

Ms. Mukoko was abducted from her home in early December. For weeks police denied any knowledge of her whereabouts, but state attorneys this week conceded that security officials were responsible.

UNITED NATIONS

Two in race to head IAEA

VIENNA, Austria | The International Atomic Energy Agency says a Japanese diplomat and a South African official are in the running to become the U.N. nuclear watchdog's next chief executive.

The Vienna-based IAEA says Yukiya Amano of Japan and Abdul Samad Minty of South Africa are candidates to succeed Mohamed ElBaradei when he steps down as director-general at the end of November.

Dec. 31, 2008, was the deadline for nominations.

The IAEA said Friday that its board of governors plans to choose a new chief in June, and submit its choice to a general meeting of the nuclear agency in September.

Mr. ElBaradei has headed the agency since 1997.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...cene-26155543/

__________________
Marwatone.

World Scene


Sunday, January 4, 2009

INDONESIA

Series of quakes topple hotel, kill 2

JAKARTA | Officials and witnesses say a series of powerful earthquakes Sunday killed at least two people in remote eastern Indonesia.

A 7.6-magnitude quake struck at 4:43 a.m. local time about 85 miles from Manokwari, Papua, at a depth of 22 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was followed by a 7.5-magnitude aftershock.

An emergency-room assistant said the bodies of a man and boy were brought to a local hospital.

A hotel in Indonesia's West Papua province collapsed when the second quake hit the region, and three people were pulled alive from the rubble, officials said. The three guests who had been staying at the Mutiara hotel in the city of Manokwari were taken to a hospital, but their condition was not immediately clear.

A hotel staff member told the Agence France-Presse news service said the hotel collapsed because it was an old building, but other buildings in the neighborhood received only minor damage, such as cracks in the walls.

SRI LANKA

Troops press Tamil rebels

COLOMBO | Sri Lankan forces launched air strikes and ground assaults on ethnic Tamil rebels in the north Saturday, a day after dealing the separatists' struggle for autonomy a devastating blow by capturing their de facto capital, the military said.

But in a sign that the insurgents remained determined to battle on, a small bomb planted under a car exploded on a busy street in Colombo on Saturday, wounding three people, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said. The attack came a day after a suspected rebel suicide attacker blew himself up near air force headquarters in the city, killing three airmen.

Ethnic Tamil politicians, warning that the beleaguered rebels would simply turn to guerrilla warfare, appealed for an end to the fighting and for new talks to resolve the Indian Ocean island nation's ethnic conflict.

PAKISTAN

Authorities arrest Taliban figure

PESHAWAR | Security officials say Pakistan has arrested a former Taliban spokesman who was released by Afghanistan in 2007 in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist.

An intelligence official said authorities detained Ustad Mohammed Yasir in Peshawar near the Afghan border. He said Mr. Yasir was Taliban leader Mullah Omar's spokesman after the regime's fall in Afghanistan in 2001.

The official said Saturday that Pakistan first arrested Mr. Yasir in 2005 and sent him to Afghanistan, where he was released along with four other Taliban figures for journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo.

A Peshawar police official confirmed the arrest. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The high-profile catch comes at a time when many in the West are concerned that tension with India could distract Pakistan from fighting militants on the Afghan border.

IRAN

Iraq's al-Maliki visiting Tehran

TEHRAN | Iraq's prime minister is visiting Iran, where the newly implemented security deal between the United States and Baghdad is expected to top his agenda.

Iranian state television showed Nouri al-Maliki receiving a red-carpet welcome after he arrived at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport Saturday afternoon.

The visit is Mr. al-Maliki's fourth to Iran since he was elected prime minister.

Iran initially opposed the Iraq-U.S. deal, which went into effect Thursday, fearing it would pave the way for a long-term U.S. presence on its Western border. But Tehran has softened its position on the pact in recent weeks.

The agreement allows U.S. troops to stay in Iraq until the end of 2011.

IRAQ

Military takes step toward withdrawal

BAGHDAD | The U.S. military took a step toward pulling combat troops from Iraqi cities Saturday, moving out of a Baghdad base that Iraqi officials said would be dismantled and converted into a shopping mall.

It was the first U.S. military base to be handed over to Iraq since U.S. forces came under Iraqi authority Thursday in step with a new bilateral security pact.

The pact, which replaced a U.N. mandate, requires Iraqi authorization for U.S. military operations, gives U.S. forces until mid-2009 to pull combat troops out of Iraq's towns and cities, and until 2011 to withdraw completely.

Brig. Gen. Robin Swan, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said the handover of Forward Operating Base Callahan in northern Baghdad was "tremendously significant."

"By June 30th, combat formations are out of the cities. This was a major forward operating base, with 600 soldiers three short weeks ago," he said.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...cene-96714116/

__________________
Marwatone.

World Scene


Monday, January 5, 2009

INDONESIA

Quakes kill at least four

MANOKWARI | A series of powerful earthquakes killed at least four people and injured dozens in remote eastern Indonesia on Sunday and briefly triggered fears of another tsunami in a country still recovering from 2004's deadly waves.

One of the quakes - a 7.3-magnitude tremor - was felt as far away as Australia and sent ocean waves into Japan's southeastern coast.

Residents near the epicenter in Papua province rushed from their homes in search of higher ground shortly after the first 7.6-magnitude quake struck at 4:43 a.m. local time, afraid that huge waves might wash over the island.

The epicenter was about 85 miles from Papua's main city of Manokwari and occurred at a depth of 22 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was followed by dozens of aftershocks.

BOLIVIA

State-owned newspaper planned

LA PAZ | President Evo Morales says Bolivia will launch a state newspaper soon and also plans to create a television station with Venezuelan and Iranian backing.

The leftist president says he has asked the government's communication department to inaugurate the newspaper Jan. 22, with the objective of "reporting the truth."

Mr. Morales also said Sunday that Bolivia plans a new state television station with financial backing from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He did not say when he plans to launch the station.

IRAN

Ayatollah warns Iraq on U.S. pact

TEHRAN | Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Sunday warned Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki against a security pact with the United States, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"Americans do not have a real friendship even with their close allies in the region, so their promises should not and cannot be trusted," Ayatollah Khamenei told Mr. al-Maliki, who was on a two-day visit to Tehran.

Mr. al-Maliki's fourth visit to Iran since he took office in 2006 was his first since the Dec. 14 signing of a bilateral security agreement for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq until the end of 2011 - a deal that irked Tehran.

Iraq and Iran also agreed to establish a high-ranking joint committee to pursue bolstering economic ties between the two neighbors, Mr. al-Maliki said.

PAKISTAN

Seven killed in suicide attack

PESHAWAR | Seven people were killed and 28 wounded Sunday in a suspected suicide attack targeting police in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border, a local government official said.

The attack took place on a busy road in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, where police had been called to investigate a minor explosion, district coordination officer Syed Mohsin Shah told Agence France-Presse.

Five police and two civilians were killed, Mr. Shah said.

A local hospital official said a severed head and limbs not belonging to the seven victims had been brought in for analysis, indicating that a suicide attacker likely carried out the bombing.

SOMALIA

Journalists freed after six weeks

NAIROBI, Kenya | Two journalists, from Britain and Spain, were released Sunday after almost six weeks in captivity in Somalia's breakaway Puntland state, police and the Spanish government said.

"The two journalists are free after their ordeals," said the head of Puntland police, Abdullahi Said Samatar. "They're taking some rest now, and they will be available later. I'm happy to see them recovering their freedom."

The release was confirmed by the Spanish government in Madrid, whose ambassador to Kenya traveled to Puntland from Nairobi to meet British writer Colin Freeman and Spanish photographer Jose Cendon on Sunday afternoon.

Mr. Freeman and Mr. Cendon were in the country to report on piracy in an assignment for England's Daily Telegraph newspaper. Mr. Cendon worked for a variety of media throughout East Africa, including Agence France-Presse.

FRANCE

Sept. 11 leader to go on trial

PARIS | The self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks goes on trial in absentia in France on Monday on charges that he ordered a deadly Tunisian synagogue bombing less than a year after the assaults on New York and Washington.

The proceedings in Paris are expected to highlight the reach and complexity of al Qaeda-linked networks in North Africa, although they are unlikely to directly affect the fate of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is being held by the United States at the U.S. Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Also on trial in France are Christian Ganczarski, a German who converted to Islam, and Walid Naouar, the brother of the suicide bomber who drove a propane-laden truck into an ancient synagogue on the island of Djerba on April 11, 2002, killing 21 people.

Ganczarski and Naouar are charged with complicity in the killings and attempted murder in the synagogue attack and face life sentences if convicted.

BRITAIN

Brown: No request by U.S. on detainees

LONDON | British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says the U.S. has not asked Britain to accept detainees from Guantanamo Bay if the facility in Cuba for terrorist suspects is closed.

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to shut Guantanamo. Several European nations have said they are considering taking inmates who cannot be returned to their own countries because of the risk of persecution.

Mr. Brown said Sunday that Britain supports the closure of Guantanamo but had not yet been asked to accept inmates.

About 250 detainees remain at the U.S.-run camp in Cuba.

KOSOVO

Serbian minister asks for calm

MITROVICA | Serbia's minister in charge of Kosovo called Sunday on international institutions to cool tensions after firefighters were injured in a blast in this ethnically divided city.

After meeting minority-Serbian representatives in Mitrovica, Goran Bogdanovic appealed to NATO-led peacekeepers (KFOR), U.N. peacekeepers and the EU mission to "prevent provocations and escalation of conflict" by majority ethnic-Albanians.

Uneasy calm returned to the streets after KFOR troops reinforced their presence following two explosions overnight Friday in the northern part of the town, populated mostly by Serbs.

Seven firefighters were injured in the second blast as they were trying to put out a fire in an Albanian-owned building apparently set by a group of ethnic Serbs angered by the first explosion.

GERMANY

Swastikas desecrate Holocaust memorial

BERLIN | Vandals daubed swas-tikas on some of the slabs that make up the capital's Holocaust memorial, police said.

Police said security guards discovered the swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans on 12 slabs Saturday afternoon. Authorities ordered its swift removal.

The memorial to the Holocaust's estimated 6 million Jewish victims consists of a field of 2,700 gray slabs situate close to the capital's Brandenburg Gate.

It opened to the public in 2005 and is freely accessible round-the-clock. Similar vandalism has occurred before.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...5/world-scene/

__________________
Marwatone.

World Scene


Wednesday, January 7, 2009

SRI LANKA

Gunmen destroy private TV studio

COLOMBO | Masked gunmen threw grenades and destroyed the main studio of Sri Lanka's largest private broadcaster Tuesday, days after state media criticized it for coverage of a Tamil Tiger suicide blast.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa condemned the early-morning attack on MBC Network's studios and ordered an investigation.

Independent MBC has clashed with the government in the past over its coverage, and again over the weekend was criticized by state-run media for giving too much coverage to a Tamil Tiger suicide blast Friday after a major military victory.

Mass Media and Information Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa, without saying who was responsible, said in a statement the attack was meant to divert attention from the military's successes and "bring the government into disrepute."

SOMALIA

Gunmen kill U.N. aid worker

NAIROBI, Kenya | Somali gunmen Tuesday fatally shot a U.N. World Food Program (WFP) aid worker in the violence-plagued country's southern Gedo region, the agency said.

Three masked gunmen ordered Ibrahim Hussein Duale to stand up and then fatally shot him, the WFP said in a statement citing witnesses. He was the Rome-based agency's third worker to be killed since August 2008.

Aid workers have been frequently targeted by gunmen in the lawless country, where 3.25 million of its 10 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.

BAHAMAS

Travolta ashes returned to U.S.

FREEPORT | Actor John Travolta and his wife, Kelly Preston, have returned to Florida with the remains of their 16-year-old son, Jett, who died at the family vacation home in Grand Bahama.

The couple received an urn with his ashes and left the island chain Monday night, according to Obie Wilchcombe, a member of the Bahamas Parliament and a family friend.

Doctors in the Bahamas performed an autopsy on Jett on Monday, but did not release results. However, a Bahamas undertaker said the teen's death certificate had "seizure" as the cause of death.

Jett Travolta had a history of seizures and was found unconscious Friday in a bathroom.

INDIA

Boeing wins $2.1 billion order

The Indian navy has agreed to buy eight reconnaissance and anti-submarine planes from Boeing Co. in a $2.1 billion deal that signals the developing nation's drive to upgrade its military hardware.

The first of the aircraft, a variant of the P-8A Poseidon under development for the U.S. Navy, will be delivered within four years, and the remaining seven will be delivered by 2015, the defense unit of Chicago-based Boeing said Tuesday.

India will become Boeing's first international customer for the plane, known as the P-8I, which also is capable of performing search-and-rescue, surveillance and targeting missions, according to the company.

TURKEY

Venezuela package from Iran seized

ANKARA | Turkey was holding a suspicious shipment bound for Venezuela from Iran because it contained lab equipment capable of producing explosives, a customs official said Tuesday.

Suleyman Tosun, a customs official at the Mediterranean port of Mersin, said military experts were asked to examine the material, which was seized last month, and decide whether to let the shipment go to Venezuela.

Authorities detected the equipment during a search of 22 containers labeled "tractor parts," Mr. Tosun said. They were brought to Mersin by trucks from neighboring Iran, he said. Turkey's Interior Ministry said an investigation was under way.

An Iranian Embassy official said the shipment contained "nothing important."

THAILAND

Web sites blocked for insulting king

BANGKOK | Thailand has blocked 2,300 Web pages deemed insulting to the country's revered monarchy and plans to block 400 more, Communications Minister Ranongrak Suwanchawee said Tuesday.

Ms. Ranongrak, a former nurse who joined the Cabinet last month, said waging an online war against anti-monarchy activists was her top priority, though critics of censorship have said the country needs to liberalize its telecommunications industry urgently to compete with the rest of the world.

The ministry also planned to spend $1.3 million on equipment for its round-the-clock war room to fight messages defaming the royal family members, Suea Loruthai, a senior bureaucrat at the ministry, was quoted on the Web site as saying.

"Lese-majeste," or insulting the monarchy, is a serious offence in Thailand, where many people regard 81-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej as semi-divine. It is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

IRAQ

President's party member killed

BAGHDAD | Gunmen have killed a member of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's political party in a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Kirkuk, Iraqi police officials said Tuesday.

Subhi Hassan, who handles political relations for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and a bodyguard were killed Monday after unidentified gunmen chased down their car after it passed through a checkpoint.

The shooting is the latest in a spate of killings that appear to be politically motivated and come in advance of the Jan. 31 Iraq-wide provincial elections.

Also Tuesday, the U.S. military said troops killed a civilian in a vehicle after the driver failed to heed warnings to stop in Baqouba. In Baghdad, Iraqi police said a parked car bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol exploded, killing one civilian and wounding six others.

ISRAEL

New York mayor backs Jewish state

JERUSALEM | New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expressed solidarity with Israelis threatened by Hamas rockets in a daylong trip to Israel that included visits to two towns targeted by the Islamic militant movement in recent weeks.

During the visit to the embattled town of Sderot on Sunday, Mr. Bloomberg and his party, which included Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, New York Democrat, were briefly hustled to a bomb shelter when a missile warning went off.

In a telephone interview with the Associated Press, Mr. Bloomberg said he fully understood Israel's actions. "You should rest assured, if anyone in New York was being threatened, my instruction to the NYPD [New York Police Department] would be to use all the resources at their disposal to protect civilians," Mr. Bloomberg said.

"I think as a New Yorker, we've been attacked twice by al Qaeda itself," said the mayor, who is Jewish. "We've seen enormous devastation and courage and after that you sort of feel you have a bond, if you will, for those who live in a dangerous world and subject to someone trying to kill them."

GAZA STRIP

Israel changes mind on foreign journalists

EREZ CROSSING, Israel | Israel scrapped arrangements Monday to allow the first foreign reporters into the Gaza Strip since the military launched its offensive against Palestinian militants, adding to mounting media frustration at being locked out of the war zone.

The ban on foreign media, which has been appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court, drew criticism from journalists that Israel is trying to manage the story.


Israel says opening border crossings for journalists would endanger staff at the border crossings, which have often been targeted by militants. Israeli officials also say many foreign reporters are biased against Israel and easily manipulated or intimidated by Hamas.

The effect of the ban is to force many media outlets to rely on partisan reports from the Israeli military or Gaza's Hamas rulers and militants for information.

LEBANON

Children protest Israeli offensive

BEIRUT | Thousands of children organized a sit-in Tuesday in front of the U.N. headquarters in the Lebanese capital to denounce the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The children, ages 6 to 13, gathered in front of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) building downtown, responding to a call by the educational wing of the militant group Hezbollah, which fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006.

Some of the demonstrators carried fake rockets and machine guns as well as pictures of Palestinian children presumably killed during the Israeli onslaught that began on Dec. 27 in a bid to stop rocket attacks by the militant group Hamas.

They handed over to an ESCWA official a letter addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging him to halt the bloodshed.

TURKEY

Editor faces jail for criticizing army

ISTANBUL | A newspaper editor faces up to five years in jail for publishing reports that accused the Turkish army of ignoring intelligence on a deadly Kurdish rebel raid, the daily's chief editor said Tuesday.

Adnan Demir, managing editor of the Taraf newspaper, was charged following a complaint by the general staff that the paper printed "leaked secret information" about an October attack by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on a military outpost near the Iraqi border, Markar Esayan told Agence France-Presse.

If found guilty, Mr. Demir could be jailed from three to five years, he said.

Seventeen soldiers were killed in the attack in which PKK rebels backed by heavy weapons from northern Iraq attempted to strike the outpost in the mountainous Hakkari province.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...cene-70921452/

__________________
Marwatone.

World Scene


Thursday, January 8, 2009

CANADA

Two sect leaders arrested on polygamy

VANCOUVER, British Columbia | Two top leaders of a polygamous community in western Canada have been arrested and charged with practicing polygamy, British Columbia's attorney general said Wednesday.

Attorney General Wally Oppal said Winston Blackmore is charged with marrying 20 women, while James Oler is accused of marrying two women.

Mr. Blackmore, long known as "the Bishop of Bountiful," runs an independent sect of about 400 members in the town of Bountiful. He once ran the Canadian arm of the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but was ejected in 2003 by that group's leader, Warren Jeffs.

Mr. Oler is the bishop of Bountiful's FLDS community loyal to Jeffs.

FLDS members practice polygamy in arranged marriages, a tradition tied to the early theology of the Mormon church. Mormons renounced polygamy in 1890 as a condition of Utah's statehood.

SRI LANKA

Tamil Tigers return to terrorist list

COLOMBO | Sri Lanka hit the Tamil Tigers on Wednesday with a terrorist designation it lifted as part of an ill-fated 2002 truce, as soldiers pressured the separatists' last stronghold on the Jaffna Peninsula.

Though largely symbolic since the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are already on terrorist lists in the United States the European Union and India and the government routinely calls them terrorists, the Cabinet vote is just one more sign that Sri Lanka has no plans to negotiate.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had given the LTTE until the new year to free civilians, which rights group say the rebels are keeping as human shields and using as fighters or battlefield laborers. The LTTE denies that.

The original ban was imposed on the Tigers in January 1998, and lifted as part of a Norway-brokered truce four years later. Mr. Rajapaksa scrapped the poorly observed truce a year ago, accusing the LTTE of using it to rearm and vowing to eliminate them.

CHINA

Bird flu death prompts alert

YANJIAO | China issued a bird flu alert Wednesday after a woman died of the virus, the first such death in the country in almost a year, and closed poultry markets for disinfecting in a province surrounding Beijing.

The World Health Organization said the woman's death, China's 21st to date, appeared to be an isolated case.

The 19-year-old died of the H5N1 virus after gutting nine ducks, which health specialists say highlights the role and risks of waterfowl in the transmission of the virus to humans.

In Yanjiao in Hebei province, where the dead woman had bought the ducks, poultry markets were closed and the sale of live birds stopped as workers in masks and white coats sprayed disinfectant.

NORTH KOREA

Overdue elections slated for March

SEOUL | North Korea announced Wednesday that it will hold long overdue elections in March amid indications the impoverished regime plans to fill parliament with finance-savvy legislators and has named new Cabinet ministers with economic know-how.

With foreign aid drying up amid a global economic crisis and a diplomatic standoff with South Korea, North Korea is turning inward to find a way out of economic hardship, analysts say.

Elections for seats in the Supreme People's Assembly - postponed last year amid speculation about leader Kim Jong-il's health - will be held March 8, state-run media said.

The elections, held every five years, last took place in August 2003. North Korea denies the leader was ill.

AFGHANISTAN

U.S. forces kill Taliban bomb makers

KABUL | U.S.-led forces raided a Taliban bomb-making cell in eastern Afghanistan, killing 32 insurgents in a battle with scores of militants who shot at them from rooftops and alleyways, the military said Wednesday.

The firefight broke out Tuesday in Laghman province when as many as 75 armed militants converged on the troops, who were searching several compounds in the area, the military said. The 32 insurgents were killed when coalition troops returned fire.

The troops destroyed two caches of weapons and roadside bomb-making materials that were too unstable to move to another location, the military statement said.

CHINA

Pingpong game marks anniversary

BEIJING | It was the small game of pingpong that got the big ball of diplomacy moving on U.S.-China relations, and on Wednesday, the two countries commemorated 30 years of formal ties with a friendly exhibition game of table tennis.

In 1971, a long-isolated China invited a U.S. table tennis team to visit Beijing - the first friendly overture in decades. The move helped pave the way for a historic visit by President Nixon the subsequent year. Washington and Beijing established formal ties on Jan. 1, 1979.

Among the players Wednesday was the youngest member of the original 1971 American team, Judy Bochenski Hoarfrost, now 50, of Portland, Ore.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte, flanked by his Chinese counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya and U.S. Ambassador to China Clark T. Randt, watched Chinese and U.S. players play several matches. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was originally scheduled to attend, but asked Mr. Negroponte to take her place so she could closely follow the Gaza crisis.

GREECE

Finance minister fired in shake-up

ATHENS | Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis fired his finance minister Wednesday in a Cabinet reshuffle to try to shore up his government's popularity, hit by riots, scandals and economic woes.

Finance Minister George Alogoskoufis, 53, was replaced by one of his deputies, Yannis Papathanassiou, 55. Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni will stay, the government's spokesman said.

GERMANY

U.S. soldier charged with executing Iraqis

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

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 killings of four Iraqi men who were found bound, blindfolded, shot and dumped in a Baghdad canal in April 2007.

HUNGARY

Gunman kills two during school attack

BUDAPEST | A masked gunman fatally shot the principal and a teacher at a school in the Budapest neighborhood of Csepel.

A Budapest police spokesman said the unidentified gunman shot the two men in the head and also shot a security guard in the hand in Wednesday evening's attack.

Police said the gunman fled the school after the shootings and they had no information on the motive for the attack.

A reward of 5 million forints, or $25,300, was offered for information leading to the capture of the assailant.

Csepel is on the northern tip of a large island in the Danube River and during the communist regime it was the hub of Budapest's heavy industry,

ZIMBABWE

7 from opposition charged in bomb plot

HARARE | Seven members of Zimbabwe's main opposition party were the first of dozens of jailed dissidents to be formally charged Wednesday, and they pleaded not guilty in a bombing plot.

The seven are among rights activists and opposition party members detained in recent weeks in what the opposition calls a crackdown on dissent. They were charged with terrorism, banditry and insurgency, and could face the death penalty if convicted.

They include Gandi Mudzingwa, an adviser to Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai; and Chris Dhlamini, head of security for Mr. Tsvangirai's party.

The charges stem from two minor blasts in the main Harare police station and a botched bombing of a highway bridge and railroad line west of Harare last year.

In a separate case, another group of detainees has been accused - but so far not formally charged - of attempting to recruit fighters to train in neighboring Botswana to overthrow President Robert Mugabe. Leaders of neighboring countries and international rights groups have said such charges are baseless.

GHANA

New president takes office

ACCRA | Ghana's new president took office Wednesday following a peaceful but tense election that secured the country's status as one of the continent's few stable democracies.

Tens of thousands of people crowded Independence Square for the inauguration of John Atta Mills, the opposition candidate who won the runoff election with 50.23 percent of the vote. It was the closest election in the West African country's history.

The ruling party candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, had threatened to reject the results but withdrew his court challenges and conceded Saturday.

Mr. Atta Mills, 64, served as vice president under Jerry Rawlings, a former coup leader who stepped down in 2001. He spent much of his career teaching at the University of Ghana. He earned a doctorate from London's School of Oriental and African Studies before becoming a Fulbright scholar at Stanford University.

GUINEA

Junta arrests officers; U.S. suspends aid

CONAKRY | Washington said Tuesday it was suspending aid to Guinea, hours after the new military junta arrested several generals it had forced into retirement after December's coup.

The State Department repeated calls for elections and a return to civilian rule.

Earlier Tuesday, the new military junta arrested several of the generals it had forced into retirement after the Dec. 23 coup.

A total of 22 generals were forced into retirement five days after the coup, which was led by Capt. Moussa Camara.

On Wednesday, military sources confirmed the arrest of 16 military officers, including several allies of late President Lansana Conte and three civilians.

Those arrested include former army chief of staff Diarra Camara, former navy chief Ali Daffe and his deputy Adm. Fassiriman Traore.

Immediately after the coup the State Department had warned that Washington would suspend its aid to Guinea, some $15 million this year, if coup leaders did not take steps to return civilian rule.

NIGERIA

Bikers wear fruit instead of helmets

KANO | Police have arrested scores of motorcycle taxi riders with dried fruit shells, paint pots or pieces of rubber tires tied to their heads with string to avoid a new law requiring them to wear helmets.

The regulations have caused chaos around Africa's most populous nation, with motorcyclists complaining helmets are too expensive and some passengers refusing to wear them, fearing they will catch skin disease or be put under a black magic spell.

The law, which came into force on Jan. 1, pits two factions equally feared by the common motorist against one another: erratic motorcycle taxis known as "Okadas," whose owners are notorious for road rage, and the bribe-hungry traffic police.

Some bikers have used calabashes - dried shells of pumpkin-sized fruit usually used as a bowl - or pots and pans tied to their heads with string to try to dodge the rules. Construction workers have set up a lucrative trade renting out their safety helmets for around 500 naira ($3.60) a day.

Yusuf Garba, commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission in the northern town of Kano, said six months ago the price of helmets was below 800 naira. Helmet prices have since risen sharply as sellers cash in on demand.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...cene-45443812/

__________________
Marwatone.

salaam arwa..i need material about...GLOBAL CHALLENGES AND PAKSITAN.........WAR ON TERROR AND ITS IMPLICATION ON MUSLIM WORLD.............plz inform me relevant post...ur work iz FANTABULOUS.......

__________________
dreams require effortless sleep while aims reqire sleepless efforts

World Scene


Friday, January 9, 2009

PAKISTAN

Fired official says leader out of loop

ISLAMABAD | Pakistan's security agencies had recommended confirming the surviving Mumbai gunman was Pakistani, the country's former national security adviser said Thursday, adding that he was fired because the prime minister was out of the loop.

India had said for weeks that the captured gunman, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, was a Pakistani. Pakistan had stonewalled, saying his name was not on a national database and it was investigating.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani fired National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani on Wednesday, shortly after he and other officials confirmed to reporters that Kasab was Pakistani.

Mr. Durrani said he was dismissed because Mr. Gilani had not been informed about the decision to confirm Kasab's nationality and the prime minister had felt the need to exert his authority.

"The prime minister happened to be ignorant. He was in Lahore and he didn't know about it. He was out of the loop," Mr. Durrani told Reuters news agency in a telephone interview.

Mr. Gilani's office said Mr. Durrani had been fired "for his irresponsible behavior for not taking the prime minister and other stakeholders into confidence."

TURKEY

General meets leaders in coup probe

ANKARA | Turkey's military chief held urgent meetings Thursday with the prime minister and president following the detention of three retired generals and nine active-duty officers in a probe into a purported coup plot.

The military said Gen. Ilker Basbug had expressed his views on the detentions. The army, which once called the shots in the country, is widely thought to be angry about the detentions, which have stunned the nation.

Eighty-six people - including 16 former army officers, several journalists, a former university dean and a lawyer - already are on trial in the case. They have pleaded not guilty and accuse Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government of attempting to silence secular critics.

Police detained about 40 more suspects in raids across Turkey on Wednesday, including nine active-duty military officers and three retired generals, prompting Gen. Basbug to summon his force commanders for a late-night meeting.

COSTA RICA

Quake leaves 2 children dead

SAN JOSE | A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck Costa Rica Thursday, killing two children who sold candy to tourists in a national park and damaging buildings in the capital.

The quake triggered landslides in rural areas and damaged a highway near the Poas national volcano park.

Two young girls selling candy at the volcano were buried in a landslide and died, a spokesman for the Red Cross said. Several other people were reported to have been hurt in a village northwest of the capital, San Jose.

The quake's epicenter was 20 miles from San Jose at a depth of 21.7 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said, and caused shaking for 40 seconds.

Local television showed buildings with shattered windows and damaged walls, but emergency services officials had no reports of widespread injuries.

NORWAY

Trains halt in Gaza protest

OSLO | Passenger trains stopped for an extra two minutes at stations across Norway on Thursday to protest Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, the union that organized the demonstration said.

Norway's Locomotive Association said all passenger trains at a station at 4 p.m. had been asked to wait an extra two minutes before continuing their routes. Trains that were not in station at that time made their two-minute stop as soon as they got to the nearest station.

The train personnel also had been asked to inform passengers the delay was an expression of "solidarity with the Palestinian people. ... We demand the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza," the union said.

Hours later, Oslo police detained at least 27 people after pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed. The violence started when about 1,000 pro-Palestinian supporters showed up at a rally sponsored by Norway's largest opposition party in support of Israel.

SOMALIA

U.S.-led naval force to battle pirates

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates | A new international naval force under American command will soon begin patrols to confront escalating attacks by Somali pirates after more than 100 ships came under siege in the past year, the U.S. Navy said Thursday.

But the mission - expected to begin operations next week - appears more of an attempt to sharpen the military focus against piracy rather than a signal of expanded offensives across one of the world's most crucial shipping lanes.

The force will carry no wider authority to strike at pirate vessels at sea or specific mandates to move against havens on shore - which some maritime experts think is necessary to weaken the pirate gangs that have taken control of dozens of cargo vessels and an oil tanker.

Pentagon officials described it as a first step to create a dedicated international structure - combining military force, intelligence sharing and coordinated patrols - to battle piracy from lawless Somalia.

EUROPEAN UNION

Deal on monitoring Russia gas flow

BRUSSELS | The European Union said Thursday that gas supplies should restart after it struck a deal with Russia on supervising the flow of gas through Ukraine.

Russia cut off natural gas supplies to Europe on Tuesday during freezing winter weather as a payment dispute with Ukraine escalated. Russia claims Ukraine siphoned off gas for its own use. Ukraine denies it.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country holds the EU presidency, said he spoke to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and they agreed on how monitors should check the amount of Russian gas entering and leaving Ukraine.

VENEZUELA

Protesters cheer Israeli's expulsion

CARACAS | Protesters condemning Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip sprayed graffiti and hurled shoes at the Israeli Embassy on Thursday, backing President Hugo Chavez's decision to expel the Israeli ambassador.

Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and chanted "Gaza, hold on! The world is rising up!" Journalists estimated the crowd at about 1,000.

The protest came two days after Mr. Chavez ordered Ambassador Shlomo Cohen to leave in protest over the attacks in Gaza. Israel says Mr. Cohen had been given until Friday to depart, and Israel is considering expelling Venezuelan diplomats in response.

AFGHANISTAN

Suicide attack targets U.S. patrol

KABUL | A suicide bomber struck U.S. troops patrolling on foot in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing at least two soldiers and three civilians and wounding at least nine others, officials said.

The blast followed an allegation from President Hamid Karzai that clashes between U.S.-led troops and insurgents left 17 civilians dead earlier in the week. The U.S. military insists all 32 people killed in the fighting were militants.

It also comes at a time when the U.S. is rushing 20,000 more troops into Afghanistan to combat a Taliban insurgency that has sent violence to record levels.

U.S. officials have warned the violence will probably intensify in the coming year. More U.S. troops, 151, died in Afghanistan in 2008 than in any other year since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban.

SRI LANKA

Army pushes rebels further into jungle

COLOMBO | Sri Lankan forces sweeping down from the north captured an important Tamil Tiger base on the Jaffna peninsula Thursday, further boxing in the retreating rebel group, the military said.

The capture of Pallai on the narrow isthmus connecting Jaffna with the rest of the island nation came after the rebels reportedly withdrew much of their artillery and heavy weaponry from the peninsula into their jungle strongholds to the south.

The group appeared to be sacrificing its bases on the peninsula and consolidating its forces in the Mullaittivu area, where it likely will make a stand against the government.

CHINA

Democracy activist jailed for six years

BEIJING | A 65-year-old democracy activist who tried to set up an opposition party in China was sentenced to six years in jail, a human rights group said Thursday.

A court in Hangzhou, a prosperous city in eastern Zhejiang province, sentenced Wang Rongqing on Wednesday on charges of subverting state power for organizing the banned China Democracy Party, according to Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

Mr. Wang was detained in June, two months before the Olympic Games started, the group said. His brother, Wang Rongyao, confirmed the sentence.

Mr. Wang has been repeatedly harassed and detained by police during his years of activism, which started in the late 1970s as China's hard-line Maoist era came to a close and some started calling for democracy.

INDIA

Accounting scandal hits investors hard

MUMBAI | India reeled Thursday over a false-accounting scandal at outsourcing giant Satyam, likened to that at U.S. energy giant Enron, amid fears for jobs, foreign investment and the country's business credibility.

There were fears the Hyderabad-based company - India's fourth-largest IT exporter - could collapse as clients run scared and potential bidders shy away from being associated with a tainted firm.

Satyam Computer Services founder and chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju, resigned Wednesday, admitting in a letter to the industry regulator and stock exchange that company accounts and assets had been falsified and profits inflated.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...cene-14471227/

__________________
Marwatone.

World Scene


Saturday, January 10, 2009

COSTA RICA

Quake death toll rises to nine

SAN JOSE | Helicopters plucked tourists from destroyed mountaintop resorts as the death toll from Costa Rica's magnitude-6.1 earthquake rose to at least nine victims, the Red Cross said Friday.

Dozens more remained missing as survivors reported seeing people buried by landslides.

The quake shook the Central American nation Thursday afternoon, collapsing homes, unleashing massive landslides and trapping hundreds of people in damaged mountain towns.

Red Cross spokeswoman Fiorella Vilca said the dead include 7- and 11-year-old sisters buried in a landslide, a 12-year-old girl whose home was crushed by falling earth, two men found dead in San Pedro de Poas, and three bodies found in a battered truck near the Angel waterfall popular with tourists. Another victim died of a heart attack in the capital, San Jose.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the temblor was centered 22 miles northwest of San Jose, near the Poas Volcano National Park.

SRI LANKA

Troops capture key rebel base

COLOMBO | Sri Lankan troops Friday captured Elephant Pass, the Tamil Tigers' last stronghold on the Jaffna Peninsula, seizing control of a base and a major highway and isolating the retreating rebels in a shrinking slice of northeastern jungle.

The victory at Elephant Pass came exactly a week after the military seized the Tamil Tigers' administrative capital of Kilinochchi and began racing deep into rebel-held territory.

The capture of Elephant Pass gives the government nearly full control of the northern peninsula - the Tamil's cultural capital and the symbolic heart of the insurgency - for the first time in nine years. The rebels still control a small sliver of land in the east of the peninsula.

It also puts the A-9 road, Sri Lanka's major north-south highway and a powerful symbol of national unity, completely under government control for the first time in 23 years.

AFGHANISTAN

Three U.S. troops among 15 killed

HERAT | A bomb killed three American soldiers in southern Afghanistan Friday, hours after a suicide bomber killed 10 Afghan civilians and two Afghan policemen in a separate attack in the south, officials said.

The attacks bring the toll of U.S. soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan to five in less than 24 hours. The American soldiers were killed when a homemade bomb exploded in the Tarnak va Jaldak district of Zabul province, which borders Kandahar province, where two American soldiers were killed Thursday, NATO said.

Earlier Friday, more than 10 civilians, one senior policeman and his bodyguard were killed and at least 20 civilians were wounded in a suicide bomb attack in a market in Nimroz province, also in south Afghanistan, the governor of Nimroz said.

PAKISTAN

5 small bombs explode in Lahore

LAHORE | Five small bombs exploded outside two theaters in a major eastern Pakistan city late Friday, but there were no casualties, police and other officials said.

The explosions spurred panic in Lahore, a cultural hub that has largely escaped the scores of suicide and other bomb attacks that have bedeviled Pakistan in the past two years.

A police investigator said religious extremists were behind these and other similar attacks.

SPAIN

Snow freezes Madrid travel

MADRID | One of the heaviest snowfalls in decades closed Madrid airport for only the second time in 80 years Friday and brought traffic in the Spanish capital to a standstill. Airports operator AENA diverted 57 flights hundreds of miles to the north, south and east after closing Barajas airport, Europe's fourth busiest, for five hours.

Madrid's regional government called a meeting of its crisis committee and raised its warning level to orange - the second highest - as snow fell throughout the morning and settled on the capital's streets for the first time since February 2005.

PERU

Jailed American moved for treatment

LIMA | Peruvian authorities have moved jailed New Yorker Lori Berenson to a capital prison to treat a chronic back ailment that could complicate her 5-month-old pregnancy.

Prison spokeswoman Janet Sanchez says prison facilities and doctors in Lima are better equipped to treat herniated disks in Mrs. Berenson's back. Her pregnancy is not in immediate danger.

Mrs. Berenson arrived at the Lima prison Friday after traveling by bus from the northern province of Cajamarca.

The 39-year-old American, who married a member of the Tupac Amaru guerrilla group whom she met in jail, is serving 20 years for collaborating with leftist rebels in the 1990s. She is scheduled for release in 2015.

INDIA

Strike causes fuel shortage

NEW DELHI | A 3-day-old strike by about 55,000 white-collar workers at state-run oil companies has caused a severe fuel shortage in India, leaving nearly 60 percent of gas pumps dry and delaying flights, officials and news reports said Friday.

Long lines of cars formed at gas stations as the fuel shortage worsened in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and other cities.

The office workers at the state-run oil companies, including Indian Oil Corp. and Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd., are demanding salary increases, the Press Trust of India news agency said. Many are in management and supervisory roles that keep the fuel supply chain running.

Without these staffers, output has dropped to about 40 percent of capacity at nearly a dozen state-run oil refineries across the country, the Financial Express reported.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...cene-36993183/

__________________
Marwatone.