PERSIAN GULF

IRAN SAYS IT WILL FUND HAMAS-LED PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

Iran will provide enough foreign aid to make up for international funding cuts in response to the election of a Hamas-dominated government in the Palestinian Authority, Reuters reported yesterday. A senior Hamas official, Khalil Abu Laila, announced Iran’s intent to carry the burden of $250 million in lost aid from America and European countries, the news service said. Hamas’s spokesman in the West Bank, Farhat Assad, was quoted by Reuters as saying, Iran is “prepared to cover the entire deficit in the Palestinian budget, and continuously.”

“We have not, though, heard of a specific sum of money,” he added.

The Palestinian Arabs receive about $1 billion in foreign aid a year, according to the report. It is not yet clear how much of that will be slashed once the new government, elected in January 25 voting, is in place. Israel has already made significant cuts.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

YEMEN EXECUTES HOSPITAL KILLER

Abed Abdulrazzak Kamel was shot dead by a firing squad in Yemen yesterday, a day after the order for his execution was endorsed by President Saleh, the BBC reported. Kamel was convicted in 2003 of killing three American Christian missionaries working at a hospital in Jibla in 2002 – obstetrician Martha Myers, 57, hospital director William Koehn, 60, and administrator Kathleen Gariety, 43 – the BBC said. The network reported that during his trial, Kamel claimed that the aid workers were attempting to convert Muslims.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

WEST AFRICA

FRENCH GANGLEADER CONFESSES TO HALIMI MURDER

The leader of the Paris gang who kidnapped, tortured then killed the young Jewish Frenchman Ilan Halimi has confessed to the murder, according to police in the Ivory Coast.

Youssouf Fofana, 25, was arrested in the Ivory Coast after committing the grisly murder which has shocked France. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said he would press for Mr. Fofana’s extradition without delay.

“He has French nationality. He has been arrested by the Ivorian police.[French] police investigators are on the scene, so we believe he could be repatriated to France in the coming hours,” Mr. Villepin said on Canal Plus. “This is an odious crime, and it is therefore important that justice be rapidly carried out.”

Ivorian police said that Mr. Fofana “denies any anti-Semitic dimension” to the crime. But investigators believe the gang had attempted similar crimes before. The French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said that four out of the six previous victims were Jewish, because the gang thought that “Jews have money.”

– Special to the Sun

EASTERN EUROPE

MAN WHO ATTACKED MOSCOW SYNAGOGUE ON TRIAL

Alexander Koptsev, 20, who injured eight people in a knife attack at a Moscow synagogue on January 11, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder “motivated by racial hatred,” the BBC reported yesterday. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. The network said Mr. Koptsev allegedly shouted “I’ve come here to kill” after bursting into the synagogue and that investigators found anti-Semitic pamphlets at his home. He has been diagnosed as schizophrenic but was found fit to stand trial, the report said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

WESTERN EUROPE

DEADLY BIRD FLU STRAIN CONFIRMED IN CAT IN GERMANY

BERLIN – The deadly strain of bird flu has been found in a cat in Germany, officials said yesterday, the first time the virus has been identified in an animal other than a bird in central Europe.

Health officials urged cat owners to keep pets indoors after the dead cat was discovered over the weekend on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen, where most of the more than 100 wild birds infected by the H5N1 strain have been found.

The cat is believed to have eaten an infected bird, the head of Germany’s Friedrich Loeffler Institute, Thomas Mettenleiter, said. That is in keeping with a pattern of disease transmission seen in wild cats in Asia. Mr. Mettenleiter insisted, however, there was no danger to humans as there have been no documented cases of a cat transmitting the virus to people.

– Associated Press

EAST ASIA

ROLLING STONES TO MAKE CHINA DEBUT

SHANGHAI, China – The Rolling Stones will play their first concert in China in April, Chinese promoters said yesterday, three years after canceling a pair of shows on the mainland because of the SARS outbreak. The band will play Shanghai’s Grand Stage, an 8,000-seat converted indoor stadium, on April 8, according to an announcement from Emma Entertainment. Ticket prices range from $38 to $375, the site said.

Before those dates, the Chinese government ordered the band not to perform four songs – “Brown Sugar,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Beast of Burden,” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together” – presumably because of their racy content.

– Associated Press