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Re-election plan passes court test

By Times Wires
Published September 29, 2007

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN  

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf secured a badly needed victory Friday when the Supreme Court cleared the way for him to run for another term, despite a challenge from opponents who say he is ineligible.

The 6-3 ruling will make it difficult for rivals to block Musharraf from winning another five years in office when the national and provincial assemblies vote Oct. 6.

Opponents had said Musharraf's other job, as army chief, should disqualify him. But the court's ruling means he can seek another term while remaining in uniform.

Musharraf's aides have said he will retire from the army if he wins another term.e_SClBZAGREB, Croatia

Sentences too light, leaders tell U.N. court

Croatian officials criticized a U.N. court Friday for handing down what they called unacceptably light sentences for two Serb army officers convicted for their roles in a wartime massacre. A third was acquitted.

On Thursday, the U.N. court sentenced a Serb army officer, Mile Mrksic, to 20 years in prison for clearing the way for the 1991 torture and killings of nearly 200 Croatians seized from a hospital in the eastern city of Vukovar - a massacre that set a standard of brutality for the Balkan wars that were then just beginning.

Veselin Sljivancanin, 54, was sentenced to five years for failing to protect the Croats from beatings and torture by the local Serb paramilitary forces and Territorial Defense units.

BERLIN

Employee nailed for selling stolen screws

Police have arrested a man accused of stealing more than 1-million screws from his employers and selling them on the Internet.

The 33-year-old assembly worker took up to 7,000 of them home every day, police said.

Over two years, he stole some 1.1-million screws with an estimated value of $155,000, police in the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg said. The man sold the screws over the Internet at discount prices, and that alerted police, who wondered where he was getting the vast quantities.

Elsewhere

TEHRAN, Iran: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad invited President Bush to speak at an Iranian university if the American leader ever traveled to the Islamic Republic, state-run television reported Friday.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil: Rosinete Serrao became the first woman in the world to give birth to her own twin grandchildren after serving as a surrogate mother for her daughter, local media reported Friday.

KABUL, Afghanistan: The International Committee of the Red Cross has established contact with the armed group that kidnapped four of its workers but no progress has been made, officials said Friday. The employees were seized Wednesday while trying to secure the release of a German captive.

Moscow: There is a "high degree of probability" that bone fragments found recently near the Russian city of Yekaterinburg are those of a daughter and son of the last czar, forensics experts said Friday.

NAIROBI, Kenya: The U.S. Embassy warned Friday that Somali-based extremists may try to kidnap American citizens from Kenyan beach resorts.

UNITED NATIONS: Six key nations and the European Union agreed Friday to delay until November a new U.N. resolution that would toughen sanctions against Iran, waiting to see if Tehran answers questions about its disputed nuclear program.

[Last modified September 29, 2007, 01:13:51]