QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The Nigerian population is not better off tomorrow because of that announcement. It doesn’t put more money in the bank, more food in their stomach.” Financial analyst Bismarck Rewane, dismissing Nigeria’s announcement that its recalculated economy is worth $510 billion, the highest in Africa Article, this page
Hungarian voters keep premier at helm
BUDAPEST, Hungary - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party won parliamentary elections Sunday and narrowly secured a new two-thirds majority.
With more than 98 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Office said Fidesz had won 133 seats in the 199-seat legislature. Fidesz, a right-wing populist party, and its ally, the Christian Democrats, received 44.5 percent of the list votes, good for 37 seats, and also won 96 of the 106 individual constituencies.
A coalition of left-wing groups led by the Socialist Party was projected to have 38 seats on the back of 26 percent of the list votes, plus the 10 remaining individual constituencies.
The far-right Jobbik party gathered 20.6 percent of the list votes, nearly 4 percentage points more than in 2010, and will likely have 23 seats.
The green Politics Can Be Different party got 5.3 percent and five deputies in the legislature.
Orban, who has frequently butted heads with the European Union about numerous policy issues and his government’s weakening of democratic checks and balances, said the election results proved that Hungary belonged in the bloc - albeit with one important condition.
“Hungarians have confirmed that Hungary’s place is in the European Union, but only if it has a strong national government,” Orban said.
6 abducted from Iraq homes found slain
BAGHDAD - Gunmen near Iraq’s capital kidnapped and later shot to death six men, the deadliest of a series of attacks Sunday that killed at least 15 people across the country, authorities said.
The gunmen broke into the homes at dawn Sunday in the town of Latifiyah, a mainly Sunni town 20 miles south of Baghdad, a police officer said. Authorities later found the bodies, all with gunshot wounds to the head, in remote, rural farmland near the capital, the officer said.
No one immediately claimed the slayings, and the motive behind the killing was unclear.
Meanwhile Sunday, a suicide bomber rammed a fuel tanker into a police headquarters in the northern city of Tikrit, killing three police officers and wounding 13, another police officer said. Tikrit is 80 miles north of Baghdad.
In Maidan, a town about 14 miles southeast of Baghdad, a bomb in a commercial area killed two civilians and wounded five, police said. Shortly before sunset, a bomb exploded in a commercial street in Baghdad’s northeastern suburb of Husseiniyah, killing four people and wounding 11, police said.
Guinea airport screens travelers for Ebola
CONAKRY, Guinea - Health officials in Guinea say all passengers departing from the capital city’s airport must fill out a health form and have their temperature taken as part of an effort to combat the spread of the deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever.
Dr. Sakoba Keita, director of prevention at the Health Ministry, said anyone with a temperature higher than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit would be tested for the disease, which has killed 86 people in the West African nation since an outbreak began in February.
French Health Minister Marisol Touraine said Saturday that French doctors from the Pasteur Institute would watch boarding procedures at the airport in Conakry.
Blasts in southern Thailand kill 1, hurt 24
BANGKOK - Suspected Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand launched a wave of attacks Sunday that killed one person and wounded 24 others.
The violence took place in the city of Yala, where at least four explosions were reported, police Col. Prayong Khotsakha said.
The most serious of the assaults was a car bomb that detonated in front a furniture store, triggering a blaze that burned nearby homes and caused numerous casualties, he said.
Other explosions were reported in the city. One bomb was hidden on a motorcycle, and another blew up an ATM.
More than 5,000 people have been killed in Thailand’s three southernmost provinces since an Islamic insurgency broke out in 2004.
While the militants target mainly security forces, others are also targets, including teachers, who are perceived as representatives of the government in predominantly Buddhist Thailand.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 04/07/2014