A round-up of today's other stories in brief:
At least 70 killed in Iran earthquake
TEHRAN - A strong earthquake hit western Iran yesterday, killing at least 70 people and devastating villages, a provincial official said. More than 1,200 people were injured in an area around the cities of Doroud and Boroujerd in the province of Lorestan, said Ali Barani, head of the provincial emergency team for disasters.
Mr Barani said 330 villages in the area were severely damaged but the death toll was unlikely to rise much further.
- (Reuters)
US planning record explosion
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is preparing to set off a record-breaking bang, detonating 635 tonnes of high explosives and sending a mushroom cloud into the sky over the Nevada desert.
The blast, on June 2nd, codenamed Divine Strake, is likely to be the biggest controlled conventional explosion in military history, experts said, and is designed to test the impact of bunker-busting bombs.
The blast comes at a time of rising tension with Iran over its nuclear programme. The US has refused to rule out military action and is considering the feasibility of destroying underground warhead development sites Iran is alleged to have built.
- (Guardian service)
Tories come clean on £16m loans
LONDON - The Tory Party yesterday responded to pressure from the police, media and Electoral Commission by publishing a list of individuals who had loaned the party a total of up to £16 million.
In a statement, party chairman Francis Maude said it had received the money in loans from 13 individual supporters.
A loans-for-peerages row erupted around the Labour Party this month after officials said Labour had received nearly £14 million in loans from 12 businessmen, some of whom were nominated for seats in the House of Lords.
- (Reuters)
One killed, 11 injured in blast
ISTANBUL - A blast in a rubbish bin killed one man and injured 11 others near a bus station in an historic area of Istanbul yesterday, the city's governor Muammer Guler said. No one has admitted responsibility.
A bomb disposal unit picked through the debris following the blast in the Kocamustafapasa district of Istanbul, a city of 12 million and a popular tourist destination.
- (Reuters)
Batasuna leader warns Spain
MADRID - The jailed leader of the banned Batasuna party said in an interview published yesterday that the peace process in Spain was doomed unless Madrid recognised his separatist Basque group.
Arnaldo Otegi was jailed on Wednesday pending his release on €250,000 bail for calling a violent strike in the Basque country earlier this month.
- (Reuters)
EU extends Mladic deadline
BRUSSELS - The EU has given Serbia another month to catch Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic after UN war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte said Belgrade's co-operation with her tribunal had improved.
- (Reuters)
Iran test fires radical missile
TEHRAN - Iran's armed forces yesterday successfully test fired a domestically produced missile which can evade radar, state television reported, a development analysts said could be worrying for Western forces in the Gulf.
- (Reuters)
Coldplay album really hot stuff
LONDON - British band Coldplay had the world's best-selling album of 2005, according to figures out yesterday. The band's third album X&Y sold 8.3 million copies worldwide.
- (PA)
DeLay aide pleads guilty to conspiracy
WASHINGTON - A former top aide to Texas Republican Tom DeLay pleaded guilty in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal yesterday, the second ex-aide to the powerful congressman to admit wrongdoing.
Tony Rudy, Mr DeLay's former deputy chief of staff, entered the guilty plea to one count of conspiracy in federal court as part of a deal with US Justice Department prosecutors in which he has agreed to tell all he knows.
- (Reuters)
Woman jailed for killing her babies
VIENNA - A 33-year-old Austrian woman was jailed for life for killing four of her babies after the tiny bodies were found entombed in buckets of concrete. Her partner, who said he did not notice her pregnancies, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
- (Reuters)
Audit of Milosevic detention unit
AMSTERDAM - Sweden has accepted a request by The Hague war crimes tribunal to conduct an independent audit of the detention unit where Slobodan Milosevic died last month.
- (Reuters)