In the World
Son of bin Laden seeking asylum
MADRID, Spain - One of Osama bin Laden's sons, who made headlines last year when he married a British woman, is seeking asylum in Spain, the government said yesterday.
Omar Osama bin Laden, 27, arrived at Madrid's Barajas International Airport on Monday on a flight from Cairo bound for Casablanca, Morocco, and was being held in a center for asylum seekers, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry said. The government has 72 hours to decide whether to allow him to stay. He had earlier been refused a British visa, the Associated Press reported.
It was not clear on what grounds Omar, a self-declared pacifist who is the son of the al-Qaeda founder and his first wife, Najwa Ghanem, was basing his asylum claim. He reportedly is the fourth eldest of bin Laden's 19 children.
- N.Y. Times News Service
Moscow police break up march
MOSCOW - Ultranationalists and anti-immigrant activists tossed smoke grenades and scuffled with riot police in Moscow yesterday as authorities broke up an unauthorized demonstration on a new holiday to mark Russian national unity.
The demonstrators - many of whom espouse racist or fascist ideology against non-Russians - defied a government ban on unsanctioned marches to celebrate National Unity Day, a holiday created in 2005 to replace the traditional celebration of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
Extreme nationalists who oppose nonwhite migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia have used the holiday to protest their presence in Russia. Riot police briefly detained 500 people in yesterday's skirmishes. There were no reports of injuries.
- AP
Plane crash kills top Calderon aide
MEXICO CITY, Mexico - Mexico's interior minister, Juan Camilo Mourino, a top aide to President Felipe Calderon, was killed yesterday when his plane crashed into an office tower in Mexico City. Eight people died and at least 40 were injured on the ground, Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said in an interview with the Televisa network.
The Learjet had taken off from San Luis Potosi state and was headed to Mexico City's airport, Televisa said. The plane crashed in the Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood of Mexico City. Body parts were visible at the site and cars and a newsstand were engulfed in flames.
Calderon had tasked Mourino, 37, with helping to crack down on violence related to drug trafficking that has killed more than 4,000 people this year in Mexico.
- Bloomberg News
Elsewhere:
In the Philippines,
a ferry packed with commuters that was buffeted by sudden monsoon winds and huge waves overturned yesterday off Masbate island, killing at least 40 people, including 11 children. Regional army commander Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Sodusta said 76 people were rescued.
A strong earthquake
has struck near the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu, but there were no immediate reports of injury or damage. The magnitude 6.3-quake struck at 5:35 a.m. today and was centered 45 miles north of Port Vila, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on its Web site.
Two Sudanese dailies
will suspend publication for three days and their journalists will go on a 24-hour hunger strike to protest state censorship, managers of the papers said.