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World in brief
Compiled from Times wires Turkish police seize uraniumANKARA, Turkey -- Paramilitary police have seized about 35 pounds of uranium and arrested two Turks who they said planned to sell the weapons-grade substance, the Anatolia news agency reported Saturday. Police, acting on a tip, stopped a taxi on a highway near the southeastern city of Sanliurfa, Anatolia said. They found the uranium in a secret compartment under one of the car seats. Police in Sanliurfa confirmed the arrests but refused to give further information. Anatolia said the uranium was enriched for use in weapons. Police believe it was smuggled from an eastern European country. The agency did not say when the arrests were made. Sanliurfa, some 480 miles from Ankara, is close to the Syrian border. Chechens continue attackMOSCOW -- Rebels set off an explosion in an administration building in a Chechen village, attacked a local police department and took three officers hostage, an official said Saturday. The attacks took place late Friday in Meskety, southeast of the capital Grozny, and involved about 20 rebels. The Interfax news agency said Russian forces were launching artillery strikes on the rebels, who were retreating from Meskety. On Saturday, Russian forces clashed with rebels near the village of Galashki, in the republic of Ingushetia bordering Chechnya. GEORGIAN PATROL: Georgia has started patrolling its mountainous border with Russia with fighter jets. The patrols by Su-25 ground attack jets come amid increasing tension between Georgia and Russia over the alleged presence of Chechen rebels in Georgian border regions. Bodies recovered from capsized Senegal ferryDAKAR, Senegal -- Divers smashed the windows of the capsized Senegalese ferry MS Joola and hauled out victims of one of Africa's worst ferry disasters. At least 180 bodies have been recovered from among more than 730 people believed dead. Barricades held back crowds who stood vigil by the hundreds overnight at the main naval base in Dakar, Senegal's capital -- waiting to know, for some, whether whole families had perished. Only 62 among the 796 passengers and crew are known to have survived -- all rescued by fishing boats in the first hours, after what for some were hours clinging to the overturned hull. Elsewhere . . .BANGLADESH: At least four bombs exploded inside a packed movie house and a crowded circus show Saturday in southwestern Bangladesh, killing at least 10 people and injuring more than 200. Two bombs went off at Roxie Cinema Hall, a movie theater in Satkhira, 110 miles southwest of the capital, Dhaka. Within minutes and a few blocks away, two more bombs blew up in a crowded circus show at a stadium in the town center. The explosions occurred as thousands of people, many of them children, were in the streets to celebrate Gurpukur Fair, a century-old festival honoring a local Hindu king. Muslims also participate in the festival. INDIA: At least 14 died as thousands of people attending a political rally stampeded to get aboard crowded trains in northern India, some electrocuted when they climbed atop the train.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
