LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We aren’t going to work on the docks until 65. It’s just not possible.”
Frederic Chabert,
a 47-year-old worker at Fos-sur-Mer, a Marseille-area port Article, 5ABomb kills 5 at Sufi shrine in Pakistan
PAKPATTAN, Pakistan - A bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded at the gate of a famous Sufi shrine in central Pakistan during morning prayers Monday, killing at least five people, officials said.
The blast at the Farid Shakar Ganj shrine in Punjab province was the latest in a string of attacks targeting Sufi sites in Pakistan. Islamist militants often target Sufis, whose mystical practices clash with their hard-line interpretation of Islam.
The dead from Monday’s blast included at least one woman, said Maher Aslam Hayat, a senior government official in the town of Pakpattan where the shrine is located. At least 13 others were wounded in the explosion, he said.
The bombing significantly damaged nearly a dozen shops on either side of the street outside the shrine, leaving large piles of rubble and broken wood. Blood stained the ground and the wall of one of the damaged shops.
The shrine itself, which is dedicated to a 12th-century Sufi saint, was largely undamaged. But the blast ripped off an old wooden door at the entrance to the shrine’s grounds.
Pakistan is 95 percent Muslim, and the majority practice Sufi-influenced Islam.
Serbia’s EU application moves forward
LUXEMBOURG - The European Union agreed Monday to review in detail Serbia’s request to join the bloc, an application that is warmly endorsed by Washington but divides EU members.
Serbia’s membership request has been gathering dust since it was filed Dec. 22, 2009. The EU has struggled with a decision on a candidate nation that was party to several wars during the breakup of Yugoslavia.
The Monday decision by the EU foreign ministers to send Serbia’s application to the European Commission - the executive arm of the European Union - for a review, brings this Balkan nation closer to one day becoming an EU member.
EU foreign ministers, however, said Serbia’s entry would ultimately be determined by whether it makes an effort to arrest Ratko Mladic, an ethnic Serb wanted by a U.N. tribunal for purported war crimes in neighboring Bosnia that include the murder of 8,000 men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica.
The decision to process Serbia’s application was hailed in Belgrade, which wants to join the bloc by 2014 or 2015.
Chavez orders Owens-Illinois takeover
CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday ordered the expropriation of U.S.-based glassmaker Owens-Illinois Inc.’s unit in the South American country.
Chavez announced plans to expropriate the company in a televised speech, saying it operates in western Trujillo state.
The leftist leader criticized the company’s practices in the country, saying it had been “taking away the money of Venezuelans” and exploiting local people. Chavez did not detail his complaints about the company.
There was no immediate reaction from the company, based in Perrysburg, Ohio.
Owens-Illinois also has operations throughout Latin America in Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and the Caribbean, focusing on the manufacture of glass containers.
It was unclear how the government would handle compensation for the company’s assets in Venezuela.
Chavez has nationalized or expropriated a wide range of companies, including cement makers, retail stores and steel mills, while seeking to lead Venezuela toward a socialist system.
He said in his speech that more expropriations are planned.
Gunmen kill 10 at Mexico rehab center
TIJUANA, Mexico - Armed men burst into a drug rehab center in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, and police said at least 10 people were killed in a city where officials had been celebrating a seeming drop in drug gang terror. A client at the center and local media reports Monday put the number of deaths at 13.
A witness, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Jesus, for fear of reprisals, said he had stepped out for something to eat when the attack occurred late Sunday.
When he returned, his fellow clients told him the attackers made the addicts lie on the floor and then sprayed them with bullets, killing 13. Other clients sleeping upstairs in the center also survived.
Prosecutors had not yet confirmed the number of dead. Police at the scene said at least 10 were killed.
It was the second massacre of the weekend in Mexico: 14 people were killed Friday night when gunmen stormed a birthday party in another border city, Ciudad Juarez.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 10/26/2010