A round-up of other world news in brief
20 feared dead in Lanzarote boat disaster
LANZAROTE – Up to 20 African migrants are believed to have died when their wooden boat capsized as they were about to land in Lanzarote (Canary Islands) late last night, writes Karl McLaughlin.
Two local youths who saw the boat overturn yards off the Los Cocoteros beach in Teguise dived into the water and swam to the aid of the migrants.
They managed to haul six to safety with the help of ropes thrown from the shore. The survivors told Red Cross workers that 28 people, many of them children and women, were on board when it capsized in windy conditions. It is believed the migrants set sail from Morocco days ago.
Mexico drug gang kills six children
MEXICO CITY – Gunmen shot and killed 12 people, including six children, in a suspected attack by a drug gang in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco.
A group of armed men fired large calibre guns on three homes in the town of Macuspana, some 30km (19 miles) from the capital of Villahermosa, killing six children and six adults late on Saturday. A source at Tabasco’s justice department said a police officer was among those killed, but it was not immediately clear if the other victims were his relatives. – (Reuters)
Zimbabwe treason charge ruled out
HARARE – Zimbabwean police say they no longer plan treason charges against a long-time opposition politician appointed to the unity government, party officials said yesterday.
Roy Bennett’s Movement for Democratic Change said police had accused the deputy agriculture minister nominee of treason.
The party said police said yesterday he faced a weapons charge instead. – (AP)
Police clash with Kurdish protesters
DIYARBAKIR – Turkish police clashed with Kurdish protesters and arrested at least 15 people demonstrating to mark the 10th anniversary yesterday of the capture of separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Five protesters and two police officers were hurt in the illegal protests in towns across Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast.
Protesters in Diyarbakir, the southeast’s largest city, threw rocks at armoured police vehicles and police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse a crowd of about 2,500 that had gathered outside the headquarters of the Democratic Society Party, the only legal Kurdish political grouping. – (Reuters)
At least 15 die in hostel fire
MOSCOW – At least 15 people died and seven were injured when a three-storey wooden hostel erupted in flames in southern Russia, local emergency officials said yesterday.
“The house has burned out fast, like a box of matches,” said an official with the emergencies committee of the Astrakhan region.
He said the fire, in a hostel built for local workers but inhabited by almost 80 squatters, broke out late on Saturday in the town of Molodyozhny. – (Reuters)
Call for train robber’s release
NORWICH – Great train robber Ronnie Biggs should be freed from jail and allowed to “die with dignity”, the author of a guide to prisons and himself a former offender, said yesterday.
Mark Leech, editor of The Prisons Handbook, said UK home office ministers should “do the decent thing” and release Biggs.
Mr Leech was speaking as Biggs (79) was being treated in hospital for pneumonia after being moved from prison. – (PA)