Pakistan: Tribal area battles rage
Published 9:00 pm Thursday, March 9, 2006
A week of unprecedented urban fighting in the tribal belt of North Waziristan has left scores dead and forced thousands to flee their homes, raising the stakes in Pakistan’s war on Islamic militancy along the Afghan border. An alliance of foreign militants, local tribesmen and Islamic students have stepped up resistance in the region where the army already claims to have wiped out al-Qaida as a viable fighting force. The military deployed 80,000 troops and mounted a series of operations over three years into Pashtun tribal domains that have resisted outside control for centuries.
Germany: Mammal gets bird flu
A weasellike animal called a stone marten was infected with the deadly bird flu virus, marking the disease’s spread to another mammal species, a German laboratory said Thursday. The sickly animal was found on the north German island of Ruegen, where three cats and dozens of wild birds have been infected with the disease, the agriculture ministry of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania said.
Iran: Police attack female protesters
Police armed with batons charged into about 200 mostly female demonstrators demanding equal rights for women in a Tehran park, beating protesters, witnesses said Thursday. A photographer who saw the incident said police confiscated journalists’ cameras. The photographer said his paper did not report on the protest. The group of mostly women and a few male supporters had assembled at the park Wednesday to mark International Women’s Day. They held banners calling for equal rights, with one reading: “It’s a shame to have to ask men for our rights.”
From Herald news services
