A round-up of today's other world's news in brief
Suicide attack on mosque kills at least five
BAGHDAD – A suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest inside a mosque in central Iraq yesterday, killing at least five people and wounding 15, police said.
The attack took place at a Sunni Muslim mosque in the town of Dhuluiya, 70km north of Baghdad, police in Tikrit said. Initial reports said the attack injured Nadhim al-Jubouri, a leader of a local armed guard unit, but police later said he was not among those injured. – (Reuters)
Western hostages released in Mali
BAMAKO – Two Canadian diplomats and two European tourists held hostage by al-Qaeda’s north African wing have been released, a spokesman for Mali’s president said yesterday.
Robert Fowler, a United Nations envoy to Niger, disappeared with his aide last December while two Swiss, a German and a Briton were kidnapped on the Mali-Niger border in January. – (Reuters)
Couple abandon three children
ROME – Police across Europe were yesterday hunting for a German couple who left a pizza restaurant in northern Italy, apparently to smoke a cigarette, and then vanished, leaving behind the woman’s three children.
The children – a boy aged six, a girl of four and an eight-month-old boy – were last night being cared for by social workers in the town of Aosta. Police, paramilitary carabinieri, revenue guards, forest rangers and alpine rescue workers are all searching for the couple.
Police named the mother as Ina Caterina Remhof (26) from Finnentrop, between Dortmund and Cologne. They identified her companion as Sascha Schmidt (24), also from Finnentrop. – (Guardian service)
Mia Farrow to go on hunger strike
UNITED NATIONS – Actress Mia Farrow plans to begin a hunger strike next week in solidarity with the people of Darfur.
The 64-year-old said she will begin a “fast of only water” on Monday “as a personal expression of outrage at a world that is somehow able to stand by and watch innocent men, women and children needlessly die”. – (Reuters)