LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The situation in Syria is still worrying and we hope that all
the parties will go
toward the solution that the Syrian people
are hoping for and
look forward to.” Lakhdar Brahimi, U.N. envoy to Syria, after talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad Article, this page Al-Qaida militants killed in airstrike
SANA, Yemen - A U.S.
drone airstrike killed two al-Qaida militants Monday in a southern town, Yemeni security officials said, the latest in a years-long U.S.
offensive against the branch the U.S. considers the violent extremists’ most dangerous.
One of the dead was a midlevel al-Qaida Yemeni operative who escaped a U.S. drone attack 10 years ago, the officials said. The other was said to be a Jordanian.
They said the airstrike on Radda in Bayda province also critically injured three militants.
The Yemeni militant, Abdel-Raouf Naseeb, escaped death in the first recorded drone attack in Yemen, on Nov. 3, 2002. That strike killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, suspected of masterminding the October 2000 attack against the USS Cole warship in a Yemen port.
Car bomb defused at Spanish brothel
MADRID - A car bomb was defused in a megabrothel’s parking lot in northeast Spain early Monday and 300 people were evacuated from the site, the Interior Ministry said.
A security guard at Paradise, one of Spain’s largest legal brothels, called police late Sunday in La Jonquera, which is on the border with France, after masked men sped up to the brothel in two cars.
A man got out of one vehicle brandishing a weapon and shouted that he was leaving behind a car with a bomb in the back. He then sped off with four other people in a second high-performance vehicle.
A regional ministry spokesman said it took a bomb squad several hours to deactivate the device. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
Spain’s Europa Press agency, citing sources within the investigation, said the explosives placed in the car consisted of two butane gas tanks, about 2.2 pounds of TNT and dynamite, with a fuse attached.
Town Mayor Sonia Martinez said she would take action to try and close Paradise, because it “seriously damages the image of the town.”
Macedonia OKs budget amid riots
SKOPJE, Macedonia - Macedonia’s parliament approved the 2013 budget late Monday, amid clashes outside the building between rival groups of protesters that left 11 police officers and at least three opposition lawmakers injured, police and party officials said.
Lawmakers voted 65-4 in favor of the $3.6 billion draft budget in the Christmas Eve vote, as riot police were needed to separate pro- and anti-government protesters, who hurled rocks and eggs at each other. Three protesters were detained for questioning, police said.
The budget must be adopted by year-end.
The Social Democratled opposition argued the conservative government was spending too much on grandiose monuments, as well as expensive cars and furniture for state officials.
Front Section, Pages 10 on 12/25/2012