Germanytries 92-year-old for Nazi war crime
Hagen (Germany): Germany put a 92-year-old former member of the Nazi Waffen SS on trial on Monday on charges that he executed a Dutch resistance fighter in 1944. Dutch-born Siert Bruins, who is now German, volunteered for the SS after the Nazis conquered the Netherlands in 1941.
S Koreaoffers $6.3 mn in aid for North via WHO
Seoul: South Korea announced on Monday USD 6.3 million in humanitarian funding for North Korea through the World Health Organisation, the second such aid package in just over a month. The South’s Unification Ministry said it had also approved aid shipments to the North by a dozen South Korean civic groups worth USD 2.12 mn.
Afghan Taliban attack US base near Pak border
Jalalabad: Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen dressed as Afghan police attacked a US base near the Pakistani border on Monday, sparking a shootout that left all three assailants dead, officials said. No member of the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan was killed in the assault on the base in Nangarhar province, said a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force.
UN heads to Iran exile camp after clashes
Baghdad: A UN team headed to a camp housing Iranian exiles north of Baghdad on Monday after residents alleged soldiers killed dozens of their members, charges Iraqi officials strongly denied. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, meanwhile, set up his own investigation into the unrest to sift through wildly differing accounts of Sunday’s events, in which clashes and explosions were reported.
Spate of Iraq attacks kills 17: officials
Baghdad: Attacks in Baghdad and Sunni areas of Iraq killed 17 people on Monday, including eight in a coordinated attack on the home of an anti-Qaeda militia chief, officials said. Northern city of Mosul and a top criminal judge in executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s home town were also caught in bomb attacks.
Death toll in Philippine ferry sinking now at 108
Manila: Philippine divers have recovered more dead bodies from a ferry that sank after colliding with a cargo ship, raising the death toll from the incident to 108, the coastguard said on Monday. Twenty-nine more passengers are still unaccounted for, more than two weeks after the St Thomas Aquinas went down off the port of Cebu.
Indian observers arrive for Maldives polls
Male: With Maldives set to hold presidential elections this weekend, a high-level team of Indian observers has arrived here to monitor the poll process and meet representatives of political parties.
Kazakhstanshaken by riots after concert
Almaty: Investigators in Kazakhstan were on Monday probing how a concert at an upscale shopping centre by a wildly popular heartthrob Kazakh singer over the weekend led to riots that left dozens wounded.