Other world news in brief
Five US troops among dead in Iraq bomb
MOSUL – Under a hail of gunfire, a suicide bomber charged a checkpoint in northern Iraq yesterday, detonating a truck laden with explosives and killing five US troops and two Iraqi policemen.
The US military gave the death toll in a statement and said the attack in the restive city of Mosul was the single deadliest incident for US soldiers in Iraq in over a year. – (Reuters)
Bolivia’s leader on hunger strike
LA PAZ – Bolivian president Evo Morales entered the second day of a hunger strike yesterday to pressure lawmakers to pass a controversial electoral law.
Morales started fasting on Thursday in protest at opposition lawmakers’ efforts to block the election reform law, which is seen as helping him in a general election this December by assigning more seats to poor, rural areas where he is popular.
“It’s impossible to end the hunger strike. First they (the opposition) have to follow the peoples will,” Morales said. – (Reuters)
Texas wildfires destroy towns
HOUSTON – Wildfires fuelled by high winds have roared across northern Texas, destroying two towns and killing two people.
Firefighters battled more than 20 major fires burning across 60,000 acres yesterday, a day after 100,000 acres burned and the small towns of Stoneburg and Sunset, northwest of Fort Worth, were destroyed. – (Reuters)
Crash blamed on gearbox failure
LONDON – An initial report into the North Sea helicopter crash in which 16 people died found that the aircraft suffered a “catastrophic failure” in part of its main gearbox, resulting in “detachment of the main rotor assembly”, the UK department for transport said last night. – (AP)
Attacks kill Sri Lankan civilians
COLOMBO – At least 128 civilians have died and more than 700 have been injured in three days of shelling in the last remaining pocket of Tamil Tiger resistance in Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan military announced that operations to free tens of thousands of trapped civilians had entered their final stage. The UN estimates about 100,000 civilians are trapped in an area of eight square miles.
– (Guardian service)
Church frowns on gory rituals
CUTUD, Philippines – Dozens of Catholic devotees were nailed to crosses, scores more whipped their backs and others chanted the Passion of Jesus Christ as Filipinos mixed faith and gory ritual on Good Friday.
Frowned on by church authorities, the voluntary crucifixions in villages north of the capital, Manila, are one of the most extreme displays of religious devotion in Asia’s largest Roman Catholic state. Monsignor Pedro Quitorio said the church discourages such rituals because the penitents were expecting rewards for hurting themselves. – (Reuters)