A round-up of other world news in brief...
Rwanda jails ex-minister over genocide
KIGALI – A Rwandan court jailed former justice minister Agnes Ntamabyariro for life yesterday after finding her guilty of incitement during the 1994 genocide.
Ntamabyariro is the first senior former government official to be tried by the authorities in Kigali over the killing of 800,000 minority ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.
“She has been individually implicated in those crimes,” Augustine Nkusi, Rwanda’s national prosecutor, told reporters. – (Reuters)
Basra fails in autonomy bid
BAGHDAD – Iraq’s electoral commission has rejected a petition for a referendum on autonomy for Iraq’s southern oil hub of Basra after supporters failed to get enough signatures.
Some politicians and inhabitants of Basra have demanded a referendum on whether the city and surrounding province might become a semi-autonomous region, similar to the Kurdish region in the north. – (Reuters)
Bulgaria seeks to reopen reactors
SOFIA – Bulgaria wants the EU to let it reopen two Soviet-era nuclear reactors to offset catastrophic damage caused by the cut-off in Russian gas supplies, economy minister Petar Dimitrov said. The impact of the gas crisis resembled the aftermath of a terrorist attack, he said. – (Reuters)
Naked raider found in chimney
LONDON – A man who was found naked and stuck in a supermarket chimney during an attempted burglary was sentenced to two months in a young offenders institution.
Daniel Davies (20) was found by firefighters after a delivery driver heard someone shouting “help me” from the chimney stack of a Tesco store in Wigan, England, last year. – (PA)
Economic protest in Iceland
REYKJAVIK – Icelandic police fired pepper spray yesterday to control protesters demanding that the government resign for overseeing the country’s economic collapse.
A crowd estimated by police at more than 1,000, some hammering on pots and pans, gathered around the Althing parliament building. – ( Reuters)
Pakistan kills Taliban fighters
PESHAWAR – Pakistani security forces backed by aircraft killed at least 20 Taliban insurgents yesterday in a military assault in the Mohmand region on the Afghan border, a paramilitary spokesman said.
“We have launched a full-fledged operation on militant strongholds. We have confirmed reports of 20 deaths on the militant side,” he said. – (Reuters)
Editor attacked in Kazakhstan
ALMATY – A US-funded broadcaster has called on Kazakhstan authorities to investigate an assault on its local editor, saying he may have been attacked because of his reporting.
The broadcaster, Prague- based Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, said its Kazakh service website editor, Ermek Boltay, had been beaten up last Sunday. – (Reuters)
Karzai criticises civilian deaths
KABUL – Afghan president Hamid Karzai said yesterday the killing of civilians by foreign troops was a main source of instability in Afghanistan, and urged the West to review its strategy in fighting the Taliban and delivering aid.
The West has stepped up its criticism about endemic corruption and poor governance by Mr Karzai’s administration. – (Reuters)