The world's news in brief
Somali cabinet votes in favour of sharia law
MOGADISHU – Somalia's cabinet voted yesterday to implement sharia law across the chaotic Horn of Africa nation, which has been wracked by conflict for 18 years.
New president Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is trying to restore stability and security, and experts say the move to establish sharia or Islamic law is aimed at undermining Islamist guerrillas who have waged an insurgency for the last two years.
“We approved Islamic law for the country. I hope the parliament will also endorse it in the days ahead,” information minister Farhan Ali Mohamud said, adding that yesterday’s vote would be written into the constitution. – (Reuters)
Madeleine was news ‘commodity’
LONDON – The father of missing Madeleine McCann said yesterday his daughter became a profitable commodity for newspapers as they turned rumours about her disappearance into front-page news.
Gerry McCann told a British parliamentary committee investigating privacy and the press that he and his wife Kate found themselves at the centre of an international media storm when Madeleine vanished shortly before her fourth birthday in May 2007.
He said an initially helpful relationship with the press turned into the “Gerry and Kate show”. Journalists on assignment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz, where Madeline disappeared, were under such pressure that “irrelevances, half truths or suggestions” became page- one news, he said.
“Madeleine, I believe, was made a commodity, and profits were to be made.” – (Reuters)
56 more charged over coup plot
ANKARA – Fifty-six more people were indicted yesterday on charges of plotting to overthrow Turkey’s Islamist-rooted AK Party government, and local media said two retired generals were among the suspects.
The investigation into an ultranationalist group known as Ergenekon has rattled financial markets and increased tensions between the government and secularists in the EU- candidate country. Eighty-six people, including retired senior officers, are already on trial for links to Ergenekon. – (Reuters)
Georgia Eurovision entry banned
GENEVA – Georgia’s entry for this year’s Eurovision song contest was banned by organisers yesterday because its lyrics seem to poke fun at Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin.
Moscow will host the event on May 16th, less than a year after Georgia and Russia went to war over two breakaway regions supported by Moscow.
The Georgian group Stephane and 3G wanted to sing We Don't Wanna Put In.
But the European Broadcasting Union, which organises the event, said: “No lyrics, speeches, gestures of a political or similar nature shall be permitted during the Eurovision song contest.” – (AP)