QUOTE OF THE DAY “Whenever we have hope and start to build
our life again, whenever we feel healing
from our wounds, a shock hits us and we feel that we lose again.” Haider al-Musawi, an Iraqi shop owner who witnessed one of Monday’s deadly bombings in a Baghdad market Article, this pageN. Korea test-fires projectiles a 3rd day
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea continued firing short-range weapons over its own eastern waters Monday after a weekend of what it called “rocket launching tests” intended to bolster deterrence against enemy attack. South Korean officials were investigating exactly what it was that the North was testing.
North Korea regularly conducts short-range missile tests.
Analysts say the recent launches appear to be weapons tests or an attempt to get U.S. and South Korean attention amid tentative signs of diplomacy after soaring tensions that followed U.N. sanctions aimed at a North Korean nuclear test in February.
The two projectiles fired by North Korea on Monday had trajectories similar to those of four previous launches over the past two days, according to officials at Seoul’s Defense Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff. Officials were analyzing whether the projectiles were missiles or rockets fired from a large-caliber gun North Korea may be developing, the officials said on condition of anonymity, citing department rules.
The Korean Peninsula officially remains in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Israeli returns to bank, kills 4, self
JERUSALEM - A gunman stormed into a bank in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba on Monday, killing four people in a gunfight and taking a hostage before killing himself, police said.
Police initially suspected a bungled bank robbery but later changed their assessment.
They identified the gunman as a former military officer who fell on hard times financially. The 40-year-old man arrived at the bank to withdraw money and settle a debt, police said. He reportedly got into an argument with the bank manager and came back an hour later with a handgun that was licensed to him and opened fire.
The dead included the bank manager, his deputy and two clients. Four other people were wounded, one seriously.
After the shooting rampage, the man then took a woman hostage and held her for an hour in the bathroom before turning the gun on himself.
Four die as blast hits court in Dagestan
MAKHACHKALA, Russia - Two bombs exploded outside a court building in Russia’s restive province of Dagestan on Monday, killing at least four people and wounding dozens of others, officials said.
The first bomb exploded in a parked car and the second went off in a trash bin about 15 minutes later after police had arrived on the scene in Makhachakala, the provincial capital, according to Interior Ministry spokesman Vyacheslav Gasanov. He said the second blast, which was much more powerful, caused all of the casualties and many of those killed and wounded were police.
Health officials in Dagestan said about 45 people were taken to hospitals for treatment. The federal Health Ministry in Moscow later said 35 people were hospitalized.
Investigators said it appeared that both explosions were set off by remote control.
Two separatist wars in Chechnya killed tens of thousands of people and spawned an Islamic insurgency that has engulfed the entire region, mainly neighboring Dagestan.
Police shooting sets off Swedish riots
STOCKHOLM - Gangs of youths angered by the police shooting death of an elderly man in a mainly immigrant neighborhood hurled rocks at police and set cars and buildings on fire in a Stockholm suburb early Monday, forcing the evacuation of an apartment block.
About 50 youths were involved in the riots in the suburb of Husby, police spokesman Lars Bystrom said.
About 80 percent of the roughly 11,000 people living in Husby - a drab, low-income neighborhood of apartment blocks west of Stockholm - are first- or second-generation immigrants.
Police have launched an internal probe of the shooting death on May 13 of a 69-year-old man in Husby. They say they shot the man in self-defense because he had attacked police with a knife when they broke down the door to an apartment, where he had locked himself with a woman.
However, a citizen’s group has criticized police for initially releasing a faulty report saying the man was taken to a hospital. The group said residents had seen his body being transported from the scene hours after the shooting in a hearse, which police later admitted was correct.
Front Section, Pages 9 on 05/21/2013