A roundup of today's other world news in brief
Suicide bombs kill Pakistani police officers
ISLAMABAD – Two suspected suicide bombers attacked police in northwestern Pakistan yesterday, killing 15 people and wounding about 20, including a town police chief.
The bombing in Bannu town, 260km (162 miles) southwest of Islamabad and near the North Waziristan militant enclave on the Afghan border, was the second attack on police in as many days.
The first bomb went off inside a police compound with the second, minutes later, just outside, police said. – (Reuters)
Expenses policing to cost £6.6m
LONDON – The new MPs expenses watchdog yesterday defended its £6.6 million set-up costs and said the annual taxpayers’ bill would be lower in future.
A new London head- quarters and IT equipment were included in the initial budget, a spokesman for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority said.
Next year’s budget is yet to be finalised but officials said they believed it would show a reduction on the staff costs of the House of Commons fees office, which it is replacing.
– (PA)
Merkel ally may give up position
BERLIN – An ally of German chancellor Angela Merkel vilified in Poland as a Nazi apologist said she would give up a seat on the board of a museum on the postwar expulsions of Germans from eastern Europe, a move likely to calm a bitter row with Warsaw.
Polish prime minister Donald Tusk last year personally lobbied Dr Merkel to fire Erika Steinbach. One Polish magazine has caricatured her in Nazi uniform. The row over Ms Steinbach, head of the League of Expellees, has also caused rifts in Dr Merkel’s coalition. – (Reuters)