A round-up of other world stories in brief....
Al-Qaeda plan to bomb US camp 'foiled'
KUWAIT – Kuwait said yesterday it had foiled an al-Qaeda-linked plan to bomb a US army camp and other “important facilities” in the Opec oil-exporting state.
An interior ministry statement said all six members of the al-Qaeda-linked cell had confessed after being arrested.
It did not say if the targeted facilities included oil industry plants in the country, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter. – (Reuters)
Pharmacy raided in Jackson inquiry
LOS ANGELES – Police yesterday conducted a new raid of a Las Vegas medical facility in their ongoing inquiry into the death of Michael Jackson, this time searching a pharmacy for documents and computer records.
Officials with the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which is assisting Los Angeles police in their investigation of the pop star’s sudden death on June 25th, said agents conducted the raid at a business called Applied Pharmacy Services.
DEA spokesman Jose Martinez declined to say if the search was tied to Jackson’s personal doctor, Conrad Murray.
Dr Murray’s house and medical offices were raided last month in Houston and Las Vegas. – (Reuters)
Somali kidnappers free six foreigners
MOGADISHU – Somali kidnappers yesterday released six foreigners seized in November in central Somalia, an airport official said.
The six – two Kenyans, two French, a Bulgarian and a Belgian – were at Mogadishu airport where a special aircraft was waiting to fly them out.
Their destination was not immediately clear.
“I understand $3 million [€2.12 million] in ransom was paid to release the six aid workers kidnapped from our region,” said local elder Farah Hussein, speaking by phone from Gurael in central Somalia. – (Reuters)
Kurdish talks request rejected
ANKARA – Turkey’s main opposition parties have rejected a government request for talks on addressing the Kurdish minority’s longstanding grievances, party leaders said yesterday, in an apparent blow to the initiative.
The government wants consensus on how to resolve a festering problem which has fuelled a 25-year conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish separatist guerrillas in which 40,000 people have been killed. – (Reuters)
Aircraft carrying 13 vanishes
PORT MORESBY – A charter aircraft carrying 13 people, including nine Australians, to a popular tourist site in Papua New Guinea vanished on its approach to an airport yesterday, the airline and Australia’s foreign minister said.
The twin-engine aircraft left the capital, Port Moresby, en route to an airport near the country’s Kokoda track, a mountainous 100km (60-mile) trail. – (AP)
Pig swallows diamond
YORKSHIRE – A farmer was yesterday waiting for nature to take its course after a pig swallowed a diamond from a woman’s £1,500 (€1,750) wedding ring.
Ginger, a Kune Kune pig, clamped his jaws around the jewel after Anne Moon put her hand into his pen at Easingwold Maize Maze in north Yorkshire.
Since the incident took place on Saturday, Mr Caygill has carried out several searches of the pig’s dung.
Unfortunately, however, he has found nothing so far. – (PA)