Month: April 2010

Gaza City, April 05: A Palestinian teenager who went missing near the Gaza border last week and was believed to have been killed by Israeli troops has returned home safe after being detained in Egypt, he said Sunday.

Mohammed al-Faramawi, 15, said he had gone with some friends to Gaza’s defunct airport near the borders with Israel and Egypt last Monday “for fun” when they found a smuggling tunnel to Egypt and crawled through it.

They were promptly arrested by Egyptian security forces on the other side and held for several days.

Berlin, April 05: Germany’s Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg admitted Sunday that German troops mistakenly killed six Afghan soldiers at the weekend, and expressed condolences for the deaths.

The German troops were en route to reinforce others under attack and had opened fire on a civilian vehicle that had ignored warnings to halt and in which the Afghans were travelling, the head of the German armed forces said.

Xiangning, April 05: Dozens of Chinese miners were pulled out alive after being trapped for more than a week in a flooded coal mine, sparking cheers among the hundreds of rescue workers who had raced to save them and almost given up hope.

A live state television broadcast counted off the number of survivors — now up to 55 — as miners wrapped in blankets were hurried to ambulances that sped to nearby hospitals.

Havana, April 05: Raul Castro called mounting international pressure over Cuba’s human rights record one of the strongest assaults its communist government has ever faced and vowed not to yield to the “blackmail” of a high-profile hunger striker.

In a 45-minute nationally televised speech, Cuba’s president said his government has the right to beat back any efforts to destabilise it.

Zamboanga, April 05: Gunmen wearing police uniforms kidnapped an elderly Swiss-born man from his home in the restive southern Philippines where he had lived for decades, authorities said on Monday.

While no-one immediately claimed responsibility for the abduction of Charles Reith, 72, Muslim militants and bandits have conducted many kidnappings of foreigners in the area over the past decade.

The local military and police said at least eight gunmen raided Reith’s beachside home on the outskirts of Zamboanga, a major port city in the south, on Sunday night.

Seoul, April 05: South Korea said on Monday it wants US experts to help investigate the mysterious blast which tore a warship in two near the tense North Korean border with the apparent loss of 46 sailors.

President Lee Myung-Bak said however that Seoul would not rush its probe into the March 26 sinking of the corvette because the world was watching the outcome.

“Given the examples of disasters in various advanced nations, accuracy is more important than speed in determining the cause of this kind of big incident,” he said in a radio address.

Santiago, April 05: More than 400,000 students will resume classes Monday in schools across Chile after a devastating earthquake destroyed large areas of the central and southern regions of the country, a minister said.

President Sebastian Pinera had set a deadline of two months within which to re-establish normalcy in healthcare, education and road transport in the most affected zones after the February 27 earthquake, Education Minister Joaquin Lavin said.

Moscow, April 05: A Russian newspaper quotes a man as saying that one of the Moscow suicide bombers may have been his daughter, a 28-year-old teacher named Maryam Sharilova.

Novaya Gazeta quotes Rasul Magomedov as saying that a photograph of the suicide bomber looks like his daughter and that she was wearing the same red scarf the last time he saw her.

The woman disappeared from her home in the southern province of Dagestan the day before the March 29 attacks.

The attack by two female suicide bombers killed 40 rush-hour commuters.

Beijing, April 05: Kim Jong-II has hosted a dinner party for the new Chinese ambassador to North Korea, state media said on Sunday, amid reports the reclusive leader was set to visit Beijing.

The dinner Saturday was attended by top North Korean military and party officials, the country’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

When Kim appeared with new Chinese ambassador Liu Hongcai, “all the participants warmly welcomed him with highest tribute”, it said.