A round-up of today's other stories in brief
11 kidnapped and killed by Iraqi gunmen
BASRA - Eleven employees of a building company in the southern Iraqi city of Basra have been kidnapped and killed, a police official said yesterday.
The official said they were kidnapped on Thursday and then killed. Gunmen abducted them in groups during the morning and evening as they left the company and then shot them. And in Baqubaat at least four worshippers were killed and eight wounded yesterday when two bombs exploded at two Sunni mosques in the Iraqi city of Baquba, police said.
The blasts happened just after midday prayers in the city. - (Reuters)
Bombs in Indian mosque injure 10
NEW DELHI - Two small bombs exploded in the largest mosque in India just after Friday prayers, wounding at least 10 people, police said.
After the blasts in an historic part of the Indian capital New Delhi, the government and religious leaders appealed for calm. - (Reuters)
Chinese perform face transplant
BEIJING - Chinese doctors have performed the country's first face transplant, the second operation of its kind in the world, Xinhua news agency said yesterday.
The 30-year-old patient, attacked by a bear, had two thirds of his face replaced in an operation that lasted 14 hours and ended yesterday.
"The surgery is even more complex than the first face transplant in France in November last year," said Han Yan, deputy director of the plastic surgery department of the Xijing Hospital in Xian, capital of Shaanxi province. - (Reuters)
Adventurer's bid stymied in Russia
MOSCOW - An adventurer's attempt to walk from the tip of South America to his home in Britain hung in the balance yesterday after a court in Russia ordered his deportation for failing to get a stamp in his passport.
Former paratrooper Karl Bushby was detained in the freezing wastes of Russia's far eastern Chukotka region on April 1st after the latest leg of his journey took him across the frozen Bering Strait from Alaska.
Anyone deported from Russia is usually barred from returning for five years - a bitter blow for Bushby, who after seven years of walking is about halfway through his 60,000km (36,000 mile) trek. - (Reuters)
Blasts kill three in Afghanistan
KANDAHAR - Separate blasts in Afghanistan yesterday killed three policemen and wounded six people including two British peacekeepers, officials said.
Afghanistan has seen a surge of attacks since the Taliban announced last month they had launched a spring offensive. - (Reuters)