Today's other world news stories in brief
Airbus crashes off southeast French coast
PARIS - One person was found dead and six were missing last night after an Airbus aircraft crashed off the southern French coast during a training flight. The Air New Zealand A320 passenger plane plunged into the Mediterranean sea 20km east of the French city of Perpignan at around 4.30pm.
One body was recovered at sea, and air and water searches continued last night. - (Guardian service)
Thousands flee fighting in Congo
KINSHASA - Thousands of Congolese civilians streamed into Uganda yesterday, fleeing fresh fighting in east Congo that added urgency to calls for more international peacekeepers.
The UN refugee agency said 13,000 refugees, 10,000 of them yesterday alone, had crossed the border at and around Ishasha in 48 hours. Most had walked for several days to escape fighting and rebel attacks on their villages in the Rutshuru district of Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province. - (Reuters)
Kenya politicians to face tribunal
NAIROBI - Kenya's coalition government has agreed to establish a tribunal to judge senior politicians and businessmen accused of organising ethnic violence after a disputed election.
An official report into the bloodshed that killed 1,300 people and drove 300,000 from their homes early this year called last month for around 10 people to face a special Kenyan tribunal or be sent for prosecution by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. - (Reuters)
Arrests made in terrorism probe
BRUSSELS - Belgian authorities raided 12 houses across the country yesterday and held seven men wanted by Morocco for terrorist offences, Belgian prosecutors said.
The action was in response to an international arrest warrant issued for 14 people related to the case of Abdelkader Belliraj, a Belgian of Moroccan origin who Morocco says carried out a series of assassinations in Belgium in the 1980s. - (Reuters)
Sikh's turban case fails at ECHR
STRASBOURG - The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed a case brought by a French Sikh man who wanted to wear a turban on his driving licence photograph in breach of French rules.
Shingara Mann Singh (52), a French national, lost a series of appeals in France against the refusal by authorities to issue a new licence with a photograph of him wearing a turban before taking his case to the Strasbourg court.