A round-up of today's other world news in brief.
Man jailed for stabbing priest
ANKARA - A Turkish court sentenced a man to four years in prison yesterday for stabbing an Italian Catholic priest in 2007 in a case that has highlighted attacks against Christians in Muslim but secular Turkey.
A court in the coastal city of Izmir in western Turkey passed the sentence against Ramazan Bay for stabbing Fr Adriano Franchini, Anatolian news agency reported. Fr Franchini survived the attack.
Bay told the court he had been influenced by media reports of other attacks against Christians, including the shooting dead of another Italian Catholic priest in the Turkish city of Trabzon in 2006.
Turkey's small Christian community has been targeted in a spate of attacks over several years, prompting concern among human rights groups and the European Union, which Ankara hopes to join.
Three Christians, two Turks and a German had their throats slit by youths who burst into their Bible-publishing house in Malatya last year.-(Reuters)
Chechnya anger over jail release
MOSCOW - About 200 people protested in Chechnya yesterday over the early release of a Russian officer jailed for murder, in a rare public show of dissent by the region's pro-Kremlin leadership.
The protesters in the Chechen capital, Grozny, were voicing anger at a decision to grant an early release to Col Yuri Budanov, convicted in 2000 of murdering 17-year-old Chechen girl Elza Kungayeva during a tour of duty in Chechnya.
The case has become a symbol of human rights abuses by Russian forces operating in Chechnya.
One banner held up by protesters at the rally said: "Budanov's face is the face of the Russian army."
Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov helped quell a decade-long separatist war and pledges allegiance to the Kremlin, but analysts say the alliance is fragile, with Kadyrov showing growing autonomy from Moscow. - (Reuters)
Kabul bomb kills two, injures 20
KABUL - A suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives north of the Afghan capital, killing two people and injuring 20, including two US soldiers, while two other civilians were killed in blasts in the south, officials said yesterday.
The bomber struck as Afghan provincial authorities and US forces held a weekly meeting inside the office of the governor of Parwan province in the local capital of Charikar, a politician from the province said.
A US military vehicle burst into flames after being hit by the blast, the politician said, and US forces blocked off the area in Charikar, 60km (37 miles) north of Kabul.
Two US soldiers were wounded in the incident, a US military official said, giving no further details.
Interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary, in Kabul, said no provincial officials were killed in the attack. - (Reuters)
Mills set to win Ghana presidential election run-off
ACCRA - Opposition candidate John Atta Mills is on course to win Ghana's presidential election run-off, independent broadcaster Joy FM said yesterday, and provisional official results also put him ahead.
With votes officially counted from 200 of the country's 230 constituencies after Sunday's run-off, the electoral commission said National Democratic Congress candidate Mills had 52.1 per cent against 47.9 per cent for Nana Akufo-Addo of the ruling New Patriotic Party. Electoral commission chief Kwadwo Afari-Gyan scheduled a news conference for midday today.
"Joy FM can project that Prof John Atta Mills will win the second round of the presidential election," the radio, citing certified returns from 223 constituencies, announced.
Ghana allows the media to announce certified results as they are collated at polling stations. Only the electoral commission can declare final results or the winner.