A round-up of the world news in brief
Israeli stance on Iran strike contradicted
WASHINGTON – Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak yesterday refused to rule out a possible strike on Iran in a comment made just hours after Israel's foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said the Jewish state would not strike the Persian country.
“I repeat what I have always said, we are not taking any options off the table,” Mr Barak said after meetings with officials from US president Barack Obama’s administration in Washington. Mr Lieberman had earlier said during a meeting with Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin that “Israel is not planning to bomb Iran.” – (Reuters)
Baghdad cafe bomb kills nine
BAGHDAD – A bomb planted in a popular cafe in southwest Baghdad killed nine people and wounded 31 others yesterday, police said.
– (Reuters)
New procedure in Ohio execution
COLUMBUS – Ohio yesterday executed a convicted killer using a new procedure that required the prison warden to try to rouse the condemned man after an initial dose of sedatives to ensure he was unconscious before a subsequent injection of lethal drugs. Daniel Wilson (39) was executed at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility yesterday morning.
– (Reuters)
Orange Prize for Robinson novel
LONDON – US novelist Marilynne Robinson won the Orange Prize for fiction on Wednesday for Home, the companion piece to her acclaimed Gilead.
Britain’s annual award to the best novel written in English by a woman, worth £30,000 (€34,500) to the winner, follows a Pulitzer Prize for Gilead, which appeared in 2004. – (Reuters)
OAS lifts Cuba suspension
HONDURAS – The Organisation of American States lifted its suspension of Cuba’s membership yesterday, opening the door for the communist-run island to return to the group after 47 years. – (Reuters)