The world in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The pain is felt by us all.”

Turkish President Abdullah Gul during a visit to Soma, where an explosion and fire at a mine killed hundreds of people

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Attacks in Baghdad fatal to at least 29

BAGHDAD -- Bombings and shootings across Iraq's capital killed at least 29 people and wounded dozens Thursday, officials said.

Police said militants using a fake checkpoint shot dead five off-duty army officers after stopping their car on a road just north of Baghdad.

The day's first explosion came from a bomb-laden car left in a parking lot in Karrada, a busy commercial area home to several government offices, courts and a hospital. The explosion killed four civilians and three police officers and wounded 21, a police officer said.

A few minutes later, a suicide bomber with an explosives belt blew himself up at the main gate of an office affiliated with the Higher Education Ministry, killing two police officers and two civilians, the police officer said. The attack wounded 12, he said.

Shortly before nightfall, police said, a car bomb near an outdoor market killed eight people and wounded 17 in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City.

Meanwhile, police said gunmen stormed the house of a Sunni anti-al-Qaida fighter in the town of Youssifiyah, killing him, his wife, son, sister and a cousin. Youssifiyah is 12 miles south of Baghdad.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for Thursday's attacks.

Bangladesh ferry flips; 100 missing

MUNSHIGANJ, Bangladesh — Rescuers have recovered at least 22 bodies after a ferry capsized during a storm in a river in central Bangladesh, officials said today.

Police estimated at least 100 people were still missing, but there was no clear picture about exactly how many people were on board because the ferry operators did not maintain a passenger list, said a local administrator, Saiful Hasan.

Sabuj, a passenger who jumped overboard when the ship began to sink, said he was among some 25 people who managed to swim to safety.

He said the captain of the double-decker ferry ignored the passengers’ calls to stay close to the shore as the storm started brewing.

“But he continued to steer the ship” out into the water, said Sabuj, who uses one name.

Relatives of the missing and the dead were gathering near the Meghna River, near where the boat capsized Thursday afternoon in Munshiganj district. Several recovered bodies, covered in cloth, were on the banks of the river, according to television footage.

Israelis said to kill two in West Bank

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian teens in a West Bank clash that broke out Thursday after Palestinians marked their uprooting during the Mideast war, a doctor said.

Three Palestinians were wounded, one seriously, when Israeli troops fired to disperse stone throwers near an Israeli military checkpoint in the West Bank, said Dr. Samir Saliba, head of the emergency department at Ramallah Hospital.

Saliba said those killed were 15 and 17 years old and were shot by live rounds in the chest. The seriously wounded protester also was shot in the upper body, he said.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said troops broke up a "disturbance" in the area, but did not use live fire.

The Israeli army, which also was present, said security forces attempted to disperse a demonstration of about 150 protesters with "riot dispersal means and rubber bullets." It said it was still investigating.

The clash happened hours after Palestinians marched in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to commemorate their displacement in the Mideast war over Israel's 1948 creation.

A Section on 05/16/2014

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