PAKISTAN: Pakistani police say suicide attackers detonated two blasts outside a
police investigation bureau in the northwestern city of Peshawar,
killing at least 11 people.
Television footage showed smoldering rubble and a destroyed car Friday.
A nearby mosque also sustained damage. Rescue teams and security forces
swarmed at the site.
Police said the attackers, including at least one woman, drove an
explosives-filled car and a motorcycle toward the police station before
detonating.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a
string of attacks in the past two weeks that have killed more than 150
people.
AFGHANISTAN: A published report says the findings of a probe into fraud allegations in Afghanistan's August election will trigger a runoff between President Hamid Karzai and his closest challenger.The Washington Post says the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission has reduced President Karzai's portion of the vote to 47 percent, less than the 50 percent he needs to win outright. U.N. officials say official results from the August 20 presidential elections could be announced on Saturday. Preliminary results released last month gave Mr. Karzai 54 percent of the vote. His main challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah had 28 percent.
AUSTRALIA TERRORISM: Five men were convicted Friday for plotting a terrorist attack in
Australia by stockpiling bomb-making instructions and purchasing
explosives.
A jury in the trial deliberated for a month before finding the men
guilty of conspiring to commit and prepare for a terrorist act. Each
faces a maximum sentence of life.
The men, aged between 25 and 44, were arrested in a series of raids on their homes in 2005.
Prosecutors had said the men were trying to punish Australia for
sending troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Four others were
earlier convicted over the plot hatched between July 2004 and November
2005.
KOREAS - TALKS: Red Cross officials from North and South Korea met Friday to discuss
holding more reunions for families separated by the Korean War.
The meeting comes during a week of mixed signals for the two rivals
that has included conciliatory gestures from the North and harsh
rhetoric.
Friday's meeting was held in the North Korean border town of Kaesong.
The South's Red Cross spokeswoman Song Soon-hwa says Seoul plans to
propose that the two sides hold more frequent family reunions.
The two held family reunions last month for the first time in nearly two years.
UN - MIDEAST - GAZA: A United Nations body has voted to endorse a report that accuses both
Israel and the Palestinians of war crimes during the recent Gaza
conflict.
The study adopted by the U.N. Human Rights Council calls on both sides
to conduct investigations within six months. Otherwise, the matter
would be referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
The report says Israel failed to take required precautions to protect
noncombatants during the fighting last December and January. It also
says Palestinian militants fired rockets and mortars into Israel with
the intention of harming civilians.
TURKEY - ISRAEL: Israel's Foreign Ministry summoned Turkey's ambassador Thursday to protest a series on Turkish state television that appears to portray Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian children. Israeli officials say the Turkish TV program constitutes incitement of hatred against Israel and could spark attacks on Jews visiting Turkey. Clips from the program show soldiers in uniforms resembling those of Israeli defense forces shooting a young Palestinian girl and a baby. The Turkish producer of the series told Israeli media that the show does not depict Israeli defense forces, and refers only to a certain group of soldiers that murdered Palestinians.
US - CHINA - TRADE SECRETS: U.S. justice officials say they have arrested a man who allegedly stole trade secrets from Ford Motor Company to sell to a Chinese competitor. The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday that authorities arrested Xiang Dong Yu a day earlier in the city of Chicago, Illinois (in the midwestern United States). An indictment in Detroit, Michigan, where Ford Motors is located, charges Yu with multiple counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets, each of which carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
BRITAINS MI5: The director-general of Britain's MI5 has defended its cooperation with
intelligence agencies in the U.S. and other countries accused of abuse
and torture of detainees in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001
attacks in the U.S.
Jonathan Evers spoke for the first time Thursday about charges of MI5 complicity in the abuse of suspects overseas.
Evers said working with organizations whose "standards and practices" were "far removed" from MI5 posed a "real dilemma."
However, the director-general said Britain has gained "huge
intelligence benefits" from its cooperation with the U.S., and that
many attacks were stopped by the effort, saving British lives.
Listen to our World News for details.
