QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Time is working against us.”
Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, as rescuers tried to save hundreds of people who were trapped after an explosion and fire at a coal mine in the country
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Jet hits Yemeni al-Qaida trucks, killing 8
SANA, Yemen — A Yemeni military jet struck three trucks packed with weapons Tuesday, killing eight people including suspected al-Qaida militants, military and local officials said.
The trucks were moving arms and ammunition, including artillery equipment, from Shabwa province to Marib province, where al-Qaida militants have been retreating after the military drove them from nearby strongholds, military officials said. Three of those killed were the drivers of the trucks, while the rest were thought to be al-Qaida fighters, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
The officials said dozens of suspected militants have been killed or captured in the past three weeks as troops and allied tribal fighters have seized a string of al-Qaida-held areas along a 60-mile stretch of highway snaking through the desert mountains of the south.
The U.S. Embassy in Sana shut down its premises last week as a precaution against possible retaliatory attacks.
Vietnam unrest targets China, factories
HANOI, Vietnam — Rioters torched about 15 factories during anti-China protests in southern Vietnam in the most serious outbreak of public disorder in the tightly controlled country in years, an official said today.
The unrest late Tuesday at a Singapore-run industrial park followed large anti-China protests by workers at the park and nearby areas.
Authorities in Vietnam are trying to handle public anger over China’s deployment of an oil rig on May 1 in South China Sea waters that Hanoi claims. Over the weekend, Vietnam’s authoritarian government gave rare permission for street protests against China in cities across the country.
On Tuesday, the rioters attacked factories they believed to be Chinese but many were Taiwanese-owned, said the official, who declined to give his name because of the sensitivity of the developments. This morning, groups of men on motorbikes drove around the complex waving Vietnamese flags and work there was stopped, the official said.
At the height of the protests up to 20,000 people were involved, according to a foreign diplomat briefed on the unrest.
Freed envoy to Libya returns to Jordan
Jordan’s ambassador to Libya, who was abducted last month at gunpoint in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, returned home Tuesday after being freed by his captors.
Ambassador Fawaz al-Etan was welcomed at Amman’s military airport by jubilant family members who hugged and kissed him and top Jordanian officials. Among the officials was Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, who hours earlier had announced the diplomat’s release.
Al-Etan said he was in good health, ready and eager to return to his post in Libya and that his captors had treated him well.
Al-Etan was taken by gunmen from his vehicle in central Tripoli near the Jordanian Embassy on April 15. Assailants opened fire on his car, wounded his driver and then forced him out at gunpoint.
A week after the ambassador’s abduction, Jordan released a Libyan detainee, Mohammed al-Darsi, who was arrested and convicted in 2007 of trying to carry out a suicide bombing at Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport. Jordanian officials would not say whether the Libyan detainee’s release was connected to al-Etan’s abduction.
Ex-Israeli premier gets 6 years for bribery
JERUSALEM — Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of about $290,000 after being convicted in March of taking bribes from real-estate developers when he was mayor of Jerusalem more than a decade ago.
Describing Olmert’s acts as moral turpitude, Tel Aviv District Court Judge David Rosen said the higher the public post of an individual, the harsher the punishment for bribery should be.
This is the first time such a high-level Israeli official has been found guilty of a breach-of-trust crime although former President Moshe Katsav is serving a seven-year sentence for rape.
Six other officials in the case also were sentenced Tuesday, including Olmert’s chief engineer, Uri Shitrit, who will serve seven years. The others received three- to five-year sentences. Additional officials, including another former Jerusalem mayor, Uri Lupolianski, will be sentenced in the coming months for their parts in the affair.
The judge said Olmert and the others sentenced Tuesday would head to jail Sept. 1, giving them a chance to appeal the verdict to Israel’s Supreme Court.