 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
World briefsCompiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times, Church, bus attacks kill 19 in PakistanISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Gunmen burst into a Roman Catholic church in eastern Pakistan during services Sunday morning and sprayed the congregation with bullets, killing at least 16 people, including the clergyman and several children, according to police and church officials. The assault in Behawalpur -- headquarters for one of the extremist Islamic groups the United States has listed as a terrorist organization -- was the most vicious incident in the worst day of unrest and violence in Pakistan since the U.S.-led bombing of Afghanistan began three weeks ago. "The method used and the inhuman tactics clearly indicate involvement of trained terrorists," Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, said in statement. "I would . . . like to assure everyone that we will track down the culprits and bring them to justice." Elsewhere Sunday, a bomb hidden under a seat in a bus killed three passengers and injured 25 in the southwestern city of Quetta, near the Afghan border. No one claimed responsibility for the church attack or the bus explosion. 'Kursk' sailors not at fault, Russian prosecutor saysMOSCOW -- The sailors aboard the Kursk could not have been at fault for the explosions that destroyed the nuclear submarine last year, Russia's top prosecutor said Sunday as rescuers pulled more bodies out of the mangled vessel. Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, in an interview on state-run RTR television, said ballistics experts were examining the Kursk to see whether it could have come in contact with an outside object. "There's a certain rubbed-off portion" on the body of the Kursk, Ustinov said, apparently referring to the theory that the Kursk was hit by a foreign submarine or underwater mine. The Kursk was lifted from the Barents Sea floor and brought to dry dock this month in a costly operation the Russian government says will help determine what caused the August 2000 disaster that killed all 118 men aboard. Most foreign experts think a malfunction in one of the Kursk's torpedoes caused the explosions. Ustinov reiterated that Russian military experts insist the Kursk's torpedoes were flawless. But he indicated that if there were a problem with a torpedo, it must have been technical and not a human error. "The human factor is absent," he said, because the crew had no contact with torpedoes except when executing an automatic command to fire them. Experts pulled out six more bodies Sunday from the submarine's fifth compartment, bringing the total retrieved since the Kursk was raised to 40, the Interfax news agency cited naval officials as saying. Lined up in identical coffins, seven of the bodies were honored at a memorial late Saturday in Severomorsk, the Kursk's home port. They were then flown Sunday to the cities of Kursk and Lipetsk in western Russia, Ufa in the Urals and Tomsk in Siberia, RTR state television reported. Also . . .NORTHERN IRELAND: Rioting flared Sunday in a divided section of Belfast as Northern Ireland headed toward a crucial legislative vote. More than 20 police officers were injured. UKRAINE: President Leonid Kuchma has promised that Ukraine will compensate the families of Israelis killed when a Ukrainian missile accidentally shot down a Russian passenger jet, officials said Sunday. SOMALIA: Somalia's fledgling government lost a no-confidence vote Sunday, ending the tenure of the country's prime minister and his Cabinet after just 13 months. Out of 174 legislators attending parliament Sunday, 141 voted against Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galaydh and his 84-member government, while 29 voted in favor, according to parliamentary speaker Abdalleh Derow Issak. Four abstained.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
