A round-up of today's other stories in brief.
At least 368 dead after tsunami hits
PANGANDARAN - A tsunami that swept through fishing villages and resorts on Indonesia's Java island killed 368 people and more than 200 others are missing, officials said yesterday.
More than 54,000 people have been displaced.
Many fled to higher ground as the sea receded before huge waves came crashing ashore.
"When the waves came, I heard people screaming and then I heard something like a plane about to crash nearby and I just ran," Uli Sutarli, a plantation worker, said. - (Reuters)
Georgia wants Russian troops out
TBILISI - Georgia's parliament yesterday demanded that Russian troops stationed in its breakaway regions leave and be replaced by an international force.
Tbilisi accuses Moscow of stirring tensions in the rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Russia says the troops, which it calls peacekeepers, are stopping a resumption of wars that gripped the region in 1992-3.
Moscow said Georgia was trying to "enflame the situation".
Georgia's parliament said the Russian presence was "a constant attempt at annexation". - (Reuters)
Clinton to act as envoy for Liberia
MONROVIA - Former US president Bill Clinton has promised to be a roving ambassador for Liberia as the west African country tries to rebuild itself after years of war.
"I will do everything in my power to assist Liberia in her reconstruction drive," Mr Clinton said during a visit to the country founded by freed black slaves from America in 1847.
"I will be a roving ambassador for Liberia without pay," he said, to rapturous applause from students and members of parliament who assembled to greet him at the Executive Mansion seat of government in the capital Monrovia late on Monday. - (Reuters)
Seven shot dead at poll rally in Congo
KINSHASA - Gunmen have killed up to seven people at an election rally in eastern Congo in an attack which revived fears that violence could disrupt the country's historic polls later this month.
The unidentified gunmen opened fire on the rally on Monday afternoon near Rutshuru in Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, where marauding bands of rebels and militias still terrorise the civilian population.
The former Belgian colony holds its first free multiparty polls in four decades on July 30th, but violence still grips many parts of the vast country.
The candidate who had staged the rally that was attacked, Jean-Luc Mutokambale, fled to Uganda in fear of his life and other local candidates said they were asking the UN for protection. - (Reuters)
Mob lynches six suspected robbers
NAIROBI - A Kenyan mob beat to death six young men accused of robbing a house over the weekend before setting their bodies on fire.
The killings took place in Nakuru town, 140 km (87 miles) northwest of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, after a man arrested for robbery on Sunday identified nine accomplices.
The crowd killed six suspects, while three others escaped. - (Reuters)
Infant betrothals over unpaid loan
ISLAMABAD - Police in the southern Pakistan province of Sindh have arrested two landowners for forcing a peasant to give two infant daughters in marriage as repayment for a €335 loan.
Police arrested Ali Nawaz Rind and Mohammad Ramazan Rind this week after they held a council of village elders, or jirga, that ordered Moora (1) and Marvi (2), the daughters of Bhongar Khoso, be given in marriage to the infant sons of Nawaz. - (Reuters)