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World in brief

Mosque attack leads to 5 deaths, 28 injuries

By wire services
Published May 31, 2005

KARACHI, Pakistan - A suicide bomber blew himself up during evening prayers at a Shiite mosque Monday, killing one worshiper and wounding 20 after a gunbattle outside that killed another attacker and two police officers.

A crowd outraged by the attack went on a rampage afterward in this southern city, burning cars and shops nearby. Eight people were injured.

The attack occurred at the Madinatul Ilm Imambargah in eastern Karachi, said Asif Ijaz, a Karachi police official. Three attackers stole an automatic weapon from a police guard outside the mosque and shot him to death, Ijaz said.

Other policemen opened fire, killing one of the attackers and wounding another, and an officer also was killed, he said.

But the third attacker managed to get inside the mosque and detonated a bomb strapped to his body, Ijaz said. One worshiper died and four were seriously injured, while 16 others were treated for lesser wounds, said Zafar Hussain, an administrator of the mosque.

LIMA, Peru - Peru's "little mermaid" - the baby born with legs fused from her thighs to her ankles - will undergo delicate surgery tonight to begin repairing her rare birth defect, her doctors said Monday.

Milagros Cerron, who celebrated her first birthday April 27, was born with a rare congenital defect known as sirenomelia, or "mermaid syndrome," which occurs in one out of every 70,000 births.

Tuesday's will be the first of three operations to separate her legs, which are seamlessly fused all the way to her heels, a statement from her doctors said. The surgery will focus on her ankles and the lower third of her calves, and is expected to last at least four hours.

There are only three known cases of children with the affliction alive in the world today, the child's physician, Dr. Luis Rubio, said in a statement.

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan - Uzbek police are rounding up activists in a new crackdown, opposition leaders said Monday, as Sen. John McCain repeated demands for an inquiry into this month's violent uprising, calling it a "massacre."

The protest in the eastern city of Andijan exploded into violence when militants seized a local prison and government headquarters and thousands of people demonstrated in the streets.

Uzbek authorities say 173 people died in the May 13 violence, and deny they opened fire on unarmed civilians. Human rights advocates say up to 750 were killed.

President Islam Karimov - viewed as one of the most authoritarian leaders still in control of a former Soviet republic - has rejected U.N. and Western calls for an international inquiry, saying Uzbek authorities will conduct their own inquiry.

HAMILTON, Ontario - The Canadian Red Cross pleaded guilty Monday to distributing blood tainted with HIV and hepatitis C in the 1980s, and was fined $4,000 in the public health disaster that infected thousands.

More than 1,000 Canadians contracted blood-borne HIV and up to 20,000 others were infected with hepatitis C after receiving the tainted blood products. About 3,000 people had died by 1997 and the death toll has grown, but recent estimates were not available.

In addition to the fine, the charity will set aside $1.2-million for scholarships for family members of those affected as well as a medical research project.

RUSSIAN PULLOUT: Russia agreed Monday to begin withdrawing its troops from two Soviet-era bases in Georgia this year, resolving one of the most serious disputes between Moscow and its pro-Western neighbor. The withdrawal from the bases at Akhalkalaki and Batumi is to be completed by 2009.

ITALIAN REFERENDUM: Pope Benedict XVI on Monday endorsed efforts by Italy's Roman Catholic bishops to restrict assisted fertility treatments, stepping into an emotionally charged Italian referendum battle. The German-born pope contended that next month's plebiscite on scrapping parts of a law that regulates assisted fertility treatments posed threats to life and the family. The law bans donations of sperm and eggs, defines life as beginning at conception, and allows fertility treatment only to "stable heterosexual couples."

[Last modified May 31, 2005, 00:45:11]