Pakistan blast kills spy-agency workers
Suicide bombers today hit a bus carrying intelligence-agency employees at a checkpoint near the headquarters of the Pakistan army in Rawalpindi, just south of the capital Islamabad, killing at least 35 people.
A senior intelligence official, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work, said at least 35 people were killed.
The violence comes as Pakistan remains under a state of emergency declared on Nov. 3 by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who cited the escalating danger posed by Islamic extremists.
Beirut, Lebanon
Lebanon in limbo as president exits
Lebanon’s shaky government veered into uncertain political terrain as midnight struck Friday and its president’s term expired without the naming of a successor.
Faced with a constitutional crisis, both the pro-Western government and the Syrian- and Iranian-backed opposition made competing claims to power, but both sides also ruled out the possibility of violence to resolve differences in the months-long dispute. The outgoing pro-Syrian President Émile Lahoud declared that a state of emergency existed and said he was handing power to the military, but the order was derided by many as having no practical effect.
For weeks, the political factions have been wrangling over the Lebanese presidency in what has become part of a broader battle for regional influence between the United States and Iran.
Unable to come up with a choice acceptable to both the Western-backed parliamentary majority and the opposition, parliament Speaker Nabih Berri rescheduled the meeting of lawmakers until next Friday.
Beijing
Landslide toll at 30 after bus found
The death toll from a landslide near China’s controversial Three Gorges Dam rose to more than 30 people after workers clearing the site discovered a bus in the rubble and identified 24 bodies, the New China News Agency reported Friday.
The slide - one of dozens along 20 miles of riverbank - occurred Tuesday morning near the entrance of a railway tunnel and a tributary of the Three Gorges Dam reservoir, in central China’s Hubei province.
The accident comes amid growing criticism of the environmental degradation caused by the dam, a massive engineering project completed in May. As critics predicted, higher water levels appear to have increased the pressure at the base of the cliffs, causing already unstable ground to give way.
Kandahar, Afghanistan
Taliban militants behead 7 policemen
Taliban militants beheaded seven policemen Friday after overrunning their checkpoints in southern Afghanistan, officials said, while in a separate clash, an Australian soldier and three civilians were killed.
Today, a suicide bomber targeting Italian soldiers killed six Afghans near Kabul, including three children, officials said.
Six other police officers were missing after the Taliban’s Friday attack on police checkpoints in Arghandab district, in Kandahar province, said Abdul Hakim Jan, a police officer.
The attack 15 miles north of Kandahar came weeks after Afghan and foreign troops forced Taliban militants to relinquish control of the town, which they had briefly captured.
Also
Indian bombings: A series of near-simultaneous explosions ripped through courthouse complexes Friday in three north Indian cities, killing at least 16 lawyers and injuring dozens of other people, officials said. Federal authorities blamed militants trying to spark unrest between India’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority for the blasts in Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad.
North Korean shake-up: North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has named his second-eldest son Kim Jong-chol, believed to be 26, as deputy chief of a leadership division in the ruling Workers’ Party, making him the top candidate to eventually take over as head of the reclusive state, the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported today, quoting sources close to the North Korean government. Kim Jong-il once held the same post.
Bangladesh aid: The U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge arrived in Bangladesh on Friday to help relief efforts after the country’s deadliest cyclone in 16 years killed about 3,500 people and left thousands missing or injured.
Seattle Times news services