A round-up of today's other world news, in brief ...
Seventeen die in Mexican shoot-out
ACAPULCO – Fifteen hitmen and two soldiers were killed in a shoot-out in the Mexican beach resort of Acapulco, an army source said yesterday.
Gunmen fired on troops from a house, throwing hand grenades at soldiers who had surrounded them and spraying gunfire into military vehicles and nearby homes.
The firefight, near tourist hotels, began late on Saturday and went on until after midnight. – (Reuters)
Islamist rumoured killed in fighting
MOGADISHU – A Somali Islamist rebel leader on US and UN terrorism lists is seriously injured from fighting between rival Islamist groups and may be dead, reports from a family member and the rival militia said.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys’s own insurgent movement, Hizbul Islam, denied the reports of his death as “propaganda”. – (Reuters)
N Korea may be back on terror list
WASHINGTON – The United States is looking into putting North Korea back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism in response to its nuclear test last month, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said in an interview yesterday.
“We’re going to look at it. There’s a process for it. Obviously we would want to see recent evidence of their support for international terrorism,” she told ABC television. – (Reuters)
Ukraine coalition plan stalls
KIEV – Ukraine’s main opposition party backed out of creating a coalition with prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc yesterday, leaving unresolved a tense political situation that has crippled the country for years.
Supporters of Mr Tymoshenko, long at loggerheads with Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko, held days of talks with former premier Viktor Yanukovich’s Regions Party on forming a coalition that would have changed the constitution and elected Mr Yanukovich president. – (Reuters)
Villagers attack Taliban militants
ISLAMABAD – Villagers in northwest Pakistan have attacked Taliban militants¨, killing seven of them in revenge for a bomb attack on a mosque that killed at least 40 people, a top government official and residents said yesterday.
It was the latest in a series of instances of people turning their guns on the Taliban in recent weeks and trying to force them out of their areas.
The incident will encourage the Pakistani government, which needs public support to defeat the militants. – (Reuters)
Seven charged in gunman’s killing
JERUSALEM – Seven Arabs were charged yesterday with killing a Jewish gunman four years ago after he shot dead four people on a bus in an Arab Israeli town.
The Israeli justice ministry said that by killing the man after he had been subdued by policemen, the seven suspected attackers took the law into their own hands. – (Reuters)