Today's other stories in brief
21 bodies are found off coast of Malta
VALLETTA - A French navy ship has found 21 bodies floating off the coast of Malta, according to French and Maltese authorities.
A spokesman said yesterday that there was no sign of a boat and the navy could not yet identify from where the bodies came.
Last week 27 shipwrecked Africans spent three days clinging to tuna nets in the Mediterranean while Malta and Libya argued over who should rescue them. They were eventually picked up by the Italian navy.
Malta refused to allow a Spanish tugboat to land another 26 would-be migrants. Spain decided to take them in. - (Reuters)
Israelis shoot dead Palestinian youths
GAZA - Israeli troops have shot dead two Palestinian youths in the northern Gaza Strip close to the border with Israel and an air strike has killed a militant in southern Gaza, according to Palestinian medical staff.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops yesterday had shot at suspicious figures trying to plant an object close to the border fence and that they reported hitting three people, two of whom were evacuated by Palestinian ambulances. - (Reuters)
Srebrenica families to sue
AMSTERDAM - Families of the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which 8,000 men and boys died, will sue the Dutch state and the United Nations, which they blame in part for allowing the killings to happen.
A law firm representing a group of about 6,000 family members said it would file a civil suit in the Netherlands on Monday.
During the 1992-95 Bosnian war, Srebrenica became a supposed safe area guarded by a Dutch army unit operating under a UN mandate. - ( Reuters)
SA civil servants strike over pay
JOHANNESBURG - South African civil servants have begun an indefinite nationwide strike over pay, causing turmoil in hospitals and emptying classrooms in a mass action the government fears could hurt the economy.
Police fired stun grenades at picketing workers outside Cape Town's Tygerberg Hospital yesterday, injuring at least one person. - (Reuters)
Election laws passed in Ukraine
KIEV - Ukraine's parliament has passed a package of legislation needed to stage an early election to the chamber in September intended to end the former Soviet state's long-running political crisis.
The assembly completed its approval of the legislation a little more than an hour before the latest of three deadlines set by President Viktor Yushchenko. - (Reuters)
Synagogue fire was deliberate
GENEVA - A fire that devastated Geneva's largest synagogue last week was caused by arson, the investigating magistrate has said. Investigators had believed an electrical fault might have been to blame for the pre-dawn blaze in the empty building, which injured no one, but had now established it was started deliberately. - (Reuters)
Pope recognises Austrian martyr
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has approved recognition of martyrdom for an Austrian who was beheaded by the Nazis for refusing to serve in Hitler's army, setting the stage for the man to be made a saint.
The pontiff yesterday authorised a Vatican decree recognising Franz Jaegerstaetter's death in 1943 as martyrdom. Ten years ago, a Berlin court exonerated Jaegerstaetter. He was drafted after the annexation of his native Austria for refusing to serve. His request to be excused from regular army service and to do non-combat duty had been denied and he was ordered executed for treason. - (AP)