A round-up of other world news in brief...
3 sentenced to death over Mumbai blasts
MUMBAI – A court yesterday sentenced to death three Indians found guilty of conspiring with a Pakistan- based militant group to carry out serial blasts in Mumbai in 2003 that killed at least 54 people, officials said.
The blasts were blamed on Pakistan-based Lashkar- e-Taiba (LeT), which New Delhi also says carried out last November’s attacks in Mumbai, which killed 166 and raised tensions between India and Pakistan. – (Reuters)
Ex-congressman convicted in US
WASHINGTON – Former US congressman William Jefferson, who was caught with $90,000 (€62,800) in cash in his freezer, has been convicted on multiple charges of bribery and money laundering.
The former congressman from Louisiana, accused in 2007 of soliciting millions of dollars in bribes from companies while using his office to broker business deals in Africa, was found guilty on Wednesday of 11 of 16 counts of bribery, racketeering and money laundering. – (Reuters)
New Tamil Tiger chief arrested
COLOMBO – The new head of the Tamil Tigers, the separatist group defeated by the Sri Lankan military after a 25-year war, has been arrested in Thailand, according to Sri Lanka’s military.
Selvarajah Pathmanathan, who was wanted on two Interpol warrants, took the reins of the remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after its defeat in May. – (Reuters)
Rwanda and DRC leaders meet
GISENYI – The leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) held a rare meeting on the border yesterday in the latest sign of thawing relations between the neighbouring states after years of tension.
Rwandan and Congolese military forces launched a joint operation this year against a Hutu rebel group operating in the forests of lawless eastern Congo, and both governments appointed envoys to the other’s capital. – (Reuters)
ANC denies ‘dodgy’ arms deals
JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s ruling ANC has denied opposition allegations that the country’s arms control body had authorised “dodgy” deals such as a weapons exhibition for North Korea and possible sales to Iran, Syria and Libya.
The opposition Democratic Alliance said a number of “dodgy” deals had “slipped through the cracks” when the national conventional arms control committee last met in 2008. – (Reuters)
Car bomb kills up to five in Kirkuk
KIRKUK – A bomb in a parked car near a crowded market killed five and wounded 30 in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk yesterday, a hospital source said.
Police gave a lower toll. Brig-Gen Sarhat Qader said three people had been killed and 18 wounded.
The site of the explosion was a mainly Kurdish area, and the bomb did not appear to have targeted Iraqi security forces. – (Reuters)
Telescope can see Earth-like planets
WASHINGTON – The orbiting Kepler telescope has spotted a Jupiter-sized planet around another star – a sighting that demonstrates it can see Earth-like planets if they are out there, scientists reported yesterday.
The planet, HAT-P-7b, was already among the 300 or so known so-called extrasolar planets, the team led by US space agency Nasa reported.
Measurements of its orbit by Kepler show the telescope will be able to see smaller planets, they reported in the journal Science. – (Reuters)