A round-up of today's other world news in brief ...
Iraq suicide bomb kills 25, injures 45
SULAIMANIYA – A suicide bomber blew himself up at a Kurdish funeral in the volatile and ethnically mixed province of Diyala in northern Iraq yesterday, killing 25 people and wounding 45, police said.
Diyala is a melting pot of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen variously professing Sunni, Shia, Christian and other faiths.
Tensions between Arabs and Kurds in the province have been rising, driven by disputes over oil and territory between Iraq’s Shia Arab-led government in Baghdad and officials in the largely autonomous Kurdistan region. – (Reuters)
Bomb kills top Fatah official
SIDON, Lebanon – A bomb killed a senior official in the Palestinian Fatah faction and four other people in southern Lebanon yesterday, security sources said, increasing tensions in the country’s volatile refugee camps.
Kamal Medhat, deputy head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in Lebanon, was killed with his companions on a road near Mieh Mieh refugee camp outside the city of Sidon.
The bomb was hidden under a manhole cover.
– (Reuters)
Swedish royal to marry in June
STOCKHOLM – The heiress to Sweden’s throne, Crown Princess Victoria, will marry her long-standing boyfriend Daniel Westling on June 19th, the Swedish royal court said yesterday.
The marriage between Victoria (31) and Westling, a 35-year-old gym owner, is scheduled to take place in Stockholm, the court said on its website. – (Reuters)
Politicians held on arms charges
TBILISI – Police in Georgia arrested several opposition members on arms charges yesterday, prompting their party leader to complain of a “campaign of terror”.
The opposition has stepped up pressure on the president, Mikheil Saakashvili, since Georgia’s disastrous defeat by Russia in a five-day war last August, and plans a series of protests against him next month. The interior ministry said 10 people had been arrested. – (Reuters)
Hutu sentenced over Tutsi torture
AMSTERDAM – A Dutch court yesterday sentenced a Hutu man to 20 years’ imprisonment on torture charges during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, but acquitted him of war crimes.
The Hague-based court found Joseph Mpambara guilty of two counts of torture. It ruled that two Tutsi women and their children were hacked and beaten to death with machetes and clubs on Mpambara’s order as they tried to flee. – (Reuters)