Afghanistan

Afghan bombing claims 41 lives

Afghan officials said on Wednesday that 41 people, mostly civilians, had been killed in two devastating attacks blamed on the Taliban.

In the worst attack for months, three suicide bombers on Tuesday killed 30 people in Zaranj, the capital of Afghanistan's remote southwestern Nimroz province on the border with Iran.

"The latest toll that I have from all hospitals today: 30 people are dead," provincial public health director, Noor Mohammad Sherzad, said. He said 130 other people, mostly civilians, were wounded.

Authorities earlier said 36 people died in the attack.

Kenya

Third victim in helicopter crash

A Kenyan military official said rescue workers have found a third body at the crash site of a Ugandan military helicopter on Mount Kenya.

Brigadier Francis Ogolla said on Wednesday that the third body was spotted close to where two bodies were discovered on Tuesday. Four other bodies have not yet been found.

Three Ugandan military helicopters crashed in different areas of Mount Kenya on Sunday. The three Mi-24 gunships were heading to Somalia to help African Union forces fight al-Qaida-linked militants. A fourth helicopter in the group did not crash.

Myanmar

Navy chief sworn in as new VP

Myanmar's navy chief was sworn in on Wednesday as the second of the country's two vice-presidents, filling a post vacated by a hardline ex-general who stepped down in July due to ill health.

Admiral Nyan Tun, who is in his late 50s, gave up his four-year command of the navy to take the oath of office before Myanmar's fledgling parliament, state television reported, after his nomination by military lawmakers.

The role of the vice-presidents has been largely ceremonial, so it is unclear what influence Nyan Tun might have on policy, although he will sit on bodies such as the National Defense and Security Council and the Finance Commission.

Germany

Four men broke Iran embargo

German police have arrested four men suspected of delivering valves for a heavy-water reactor to Iran, breaking an embargo on such exports to the Islamic Republic imposed over its disputed nuclear program.

Prosecutors said some 90 customs officers arrested the men, a German and three with dual German-Iranian citizenship, at their homes in the northern cities of Hamburg and Oldenburg and the eastern town of Weimar, and searched flats and offices.

"In 2010 and 2011 the suspects are believed to have helped in the delivery of special valves for the construction of a heavy-water reactor in Iran and therefore to have broken the Iran embargo," prosecutors said in a statement on Wednesday.

Australia

Suspect avoids extradition

Australia's highest court ruled on Wednesday that a 90-year-old citizen cannot be extradited to Hungary to face accusations he tortured and killed a Jewish teenager during World War II.

The High Court upheld a lower court's decision that reasoned war crimes charges former Hungarian soldier Charles Zentai may face did not exist at the time of the slaying, a conclusion criticized by the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Hungary says Zentai is suspected of beating the teen to death in Budapest in 1944 for failing to wear a star identifying him as a Jew. Zentai, who migrated to Australia in 1950 and later became a citizen, has denied the allegation and has been fighting extradition since 2005.

AP-Reuters-AFP

(China Daily 08/16/2012 page11)