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Bomb outside Yemen mosque kills 18 SAN'A, Yemen -- A bomb rigged to a motorcycle blew up amid a crowd of worshippers leaving Friday prayers at a mosque in a rebel stronghold of northern Yemen, killing at least 18 people and wounding about four dozen, officials said.
The attack occurred in Saada, a city in a mountainous Shiite Muslim area on the border with Saudi Arabia where a rebellion by members of the al-Zaydi sect erupted in 2004. Thousands have died in violence between the rebels and the government of this predominantly Sunni country. Both sides blamed each other for the attack in Saada, where officials said most of the 18 dead and approximately 45 injured were worshippers filing out of the Bin Salman mosque. Mohammed Abdel Bari said he was inside the mosque when he heard a strong explosion. "I saw crowds of people and two charred vehicles. I saw scores of people laying on the ground," he said. Government officials blamed the bombing on rebel leader Abdel-Malek al-Hawthi and said six people had been arrested in Saada.
Insurgents threaten revenge on America MOGADISHU, Somalia -- A U.S. airstrike that killed the suspected al-Qaida leader in Somalia brought warnings of vengeance from Islamic insurgents Friday and the threat of a boycott that could jeopardize peace talks with the U.N.-supported government. The biggest alliance supporting Somalia's Islamic insurgency said it might pull out of planned May 10 talks on escalating fighting and a humanitarian crisis that has caused thousands of civilian deaths and displaced hundreds of thousands over the past year. "The U.S. strike can undermine the U.N.-sponsored peace parlay," said Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, exiled chairman of the Alliance for Liberation and Reconstitution of Somalia.
Agreement reached on incentives for Iran on nuclear program LONDON -- World powers agreed Friday to try again to lure Iran to the nuclear bargaining table with a repackaged set of carrots to accompany the stick of U.N. sanctions. Diplomats said the offer contained no major new enticements but was meant to remind the clerical regime that talking is still an option. The central terms of a 2006 compromise stand: Iran could trade away worrisome elements of its nuclear program for economic and political incentives and the possibility of a better relationship with archrival Washington. Iran turned down that invitation, saying it came with insulting strings attached, and Western diplomats were hard-pressed to say why the response would be any different today. The United Nations Security Council has imposed three sets of mild financial and other sanctions on Iran as a cost of spurning the offer.
Torch relay goes smoothly in Hong Kong HONG KONG -- Hong Kong's near-flawless Olympic torch relay Friday might help ease Beijing's suspicions that the former British colony doesn't love the Chinese motherland enough. Tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents dressed in red -- the Communist Party's favorite color -- lined the streets and cheered during the flame's tour through this bastion of capitalism. There were no massive protests demanding more democracy in the city that Britain handed back to China 11 years ago. Human rights groups and pro-Tibet activists didn't try to block the relay, as others have during the flame's overseas odyssey in 20 nations. Instead, for many in Hong Kong, it was a day to celebrate and be proud to be Chinese. Many carried Chinese flags or wore big red stickers on their shirts saying, "Go China!"
Japanese official demoted for 780,000 hits on porn sites TOKYO -- A Japanese civil servant was demoted for logging more than 780,000 hits on pornographic Web sites on his office computer over nine months, an official said Friday. The man, a Kinokawa city government employee in western Japan, visited porn sites from June 2007 to February 2008, city official Tomiko Waki said. The man's name was withheld. City officials said the number of hits discovered on his computer's internal log was so high in part because one click on certain types of pornographic sites registers multiple hits. Despite his frequent porn viewing, none of his colleagues noticed his activities, which he apparently conducted throughout the workday. "Each desk is set apart from each other," Waki said, adding that the man logged 170,000 hits on porn sites in July alone. The man's supervisors discovered his extensive porn site visits after his computer became infected with a virus, prompting officials to examine his Web browser's history.
Envoys for Dalai Lama heading to China BEIJING -- Representatives of the Dalai Lama are scheduled to arrive in China on Saturday to begin informal talks with their Chinese counterparts on the unrest in Tibet. The meetings will be the first face-to-face contact between the two sides since talks broke off last summer. Protests in March against Chinese rule in Tibet swelled into a violent uprising, including a deadly March 14 riot in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. "The envoys will raise the issue of the current crisis in all of the Tibetan areas," said Thubten Samphel, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile in Dharmsala, India. They will also convey "deep concern over how Chinese leaders handled the crisis and offer suggestions for how peace can be reestablished in the region." |
