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Monday, June 15, 2009

Yemen: 9 Foreigners Kidnapped by Shiite Rebels

Yemen accused a Shiite rebel group Sunday of kidnapping nine foreigners in the country's rugged north.The Interior Ministry said the foreigners were kidnapped Friday by a rebel group led by Abdel Malak al-Hawthi while on a picnic in northern Sada province.The nine foreigners reportedly were mostly women and children, including a Briton, seven Germans and a female South Korean teacher.The state news agency Saba said the foreigners worked in a hospital in Sada.Tribesmen in Yemen frequently take foreigners hostage to pressure the government on a range of demands and generally release them unharmed.Tribesmen on Friday freed 24 local and foreign medics working at a Saudi-funded hospital in Sada less than 24 hours after their kidnapping, which was not carried out by the al-Hawthi group.Thousands of people have been killed in Saada since a Shiite rebellion erupted there in June 2004. The rebels say the government is corrupt and too closely allied with the West. The government has charged al-Hawthi with sedition, forming an illegal armed group and inciting anti-American sentiment.The group negotiated a fragile cease-fire with the government last year, but serious tension remains.Meanwhile, a Yemen security source said Sunday that a man described as the lead financer of Al Qaeda in Yemen and Saudi Arabia had been arrested.Reuters reported the source said Hassan Hussein Alwan, a Saudi national, was seized two days ago in Marib province in the east of Yemen.

Herschel telescope 'opens eyes'

Europe's new billion-euro Herschel space observatory, launched in May, has achieved a critical milestone.The telescope has opened the hatch that has been protecting its sensitive instruments from contamination.The procedure allowed light collected by Herschel's giant 3.5m mirror to flood its supercold instrument chamber, or cryostat, for the first time.The observatory's quest is to study how stars and galaxies form, and how they evolve through cosmic time.The command sent on Sunday to fire two pyrotechnic bolts holding down the hatch was arguably the key moment in the European Space Agency (Esa) mission since the 14 May launch from Earth."We need the lid open or we can't see the sky, so it's a really important event," said Professor Matt Griffin, the principal investigator on SPIRE, one of three instruments inside the cryostat.

Deaths in Pakistan market bombing

An explosion has taken place at a market in Pakistan's northwest, killing at least eight people and wounding about 50, according to a government official.Police arrested one person on suspicion of involvement shortly after the blast in the city of Dera Ismail Khan in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on Sunday.The explosion occurred as fighting between the military and Taliban fighters continued in the Swat valley, in another part of NWFP.

PM backs 'demilitarised Palestinian state’, offers few concessions

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday for the first time endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state, saying such an entity would have to be demilitarised and recognise Israel as a home of the Jewish people."If we have the guarantees on demilitarisation and if the Palestinians recognise Israel as a state of the Jewish people, then we arrive at a solution based on a demilitarised Palestinian state alongside Israel," he said."Each will have its flag, each will have its anthem," he said. "The Palestinian territory will be without arms, will not control airspace, will not be able to have arms enter."

Iran election dispute fans unrest

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's incumbent president, has defended his disputed re-election at a public rally in Tehran, insisting that the vote was not "distorted" as claimed by his rivals. The speech was delivered amid reports of arrests of several reformist politicians who supported Mir Hossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad's main challenger, and a formal appeal by Mousavi for the cancellation of Friday's vote.Supporters of the conservative Ahmadinejad, waving Iranian flags and his portraits filled the capital's Valiasr Square on Sunday to listen to his speech after the authorities declared that he had won a second four-year term by a huge margin over Mousavi."Elections in Iran are the cleanest. But some inside or outside Iran have come out and said the elections have been distorted. Where is the distortion in the election?" Ahmadinejad said as the crowds shouted "Bravo Ahmadi!"