Other world news in brief.
Iraqi clan grieves for 25 killed by bomb
BAGHDAD - An Iraqi clan overwhelmed by shock and grief buried its dead yesterday after a suicide bomber killed 25 people at a celebratory banquet in west Baghdad.
Male relatives, some still wearing robes stained with blood from carrying the dead, wailed prayers over the bodies laid out in shrouds at the mosque at dawn in Abu Ghraib, a Sunni Arab district on the far western outskirts of the capital.
Police said 25 people had been killed and 38 wounded, some of them evacuated in US military helicopters.
They said the dead included members of US-backed neighbourhood patrols, often a target of al-Qaeda militants. - (Reuters)
74 killed in Sri Lankan battle
COLOMBO- At least 74 people were killed during a Sri Lankan military push to take the symbolic capital of the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, the military said yesterday.
Troops killed 67 rebels from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and wounded 70 over three days of combat from Friday on several fronts, surrounding the separatists northern strongholds, the military said.
Seven soldiers died and 54 were wounded in the same combat, part of an eight-month assault by the government with the aim of crushing the rebels to finally end a 25-year-old civil war that has killed 70,000 people. - (Reuters)
Bodies of eight climbers found
LYONS- The bodies of eight climbers swept up in an avalanche near Mont Blanc were located yesterday, buried beneath up to 50m (164ft) of ice, police officials said. However, they said the remains could not be retrieved, as snow conditions remained too unstable.
Regis Lavergne, commander of the High Mountain Gendarmes based in Chamonix, said a helicopter picked up the signal of special homing devices the climbers were wearing.
It appeared from the signals that the climbers - four Germans, three Swiss and one Austrian - had fallen into a deep crevasse. - (PA)
Zia followers riot in Bangladesh
DHAKA- Supporters of Bangladesh's detained former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia went on a rampage in Dhaka on Monday, burning and damaging vehicles in a protest in which one man was killed and nine injured, police said. The protesters were demanding that the country's army-backed interim administration allow Khaleda's ailing son to go abroad for medical treatment. - (Reuters)
State pays family after son's suicide
TOKYO- The Japanese government will have to pay damages to the parents of a sailor who hanged himself after being repeatedly insulted by his superior, in the first such court ruling involving a civil servant, media said.
The Fukuoka High Court in southern Japan ordered 3.5 million yen (€21,700) be paid to the parents of the petty officer third class, a court spokesman said, declining to give further details. - (Reuters)
Online beauty contest for nuns
ROME- An Italian priest and theologian says he is organising an online beauty pageant for nuns that aims to give them more visibility within the Catholic Church and fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour.
Fr Antonio Rungi says the Miss Sister 2008 contest will start in September on his blog and will give nuns around the world a chance to showcase their work and their image.
Fr Rungi said visitors to his site would have a month to "vote for the nun they consider a model". - (PA)