Troops are killed in jungle ambush
RAIPUR Dozens of Indian troops and Maoist insurgents have been killed in one of the biggest clashes in the turbulent centre of the country.
Police said that more than 100 soldiers and armed police were sent to investigate a tip-off about a rebel camp in Chhattisgarh state. Twenty-three bodies had been found and more than a dozen more people were missing, feared dead, in the Maraeguda jungles, around 500km (310 miles) from Raipur, the state capital. “It looks like it was a set-up,” said a senior Home Ministry official over what was said to be an ambush. (AFP)
Children die in blast
KANDAHAR Seventeen civilians, 12 of them children, were killed and 30 were wounded when a Taleban suicide bomber blew himself up near a Nato convoy in southern Afghanistan. Seven Nato troops were wounded in the explosion. The attacker, who was on foot, detonated his bomb as the convoy passed through the town of Dehrawood, 250 miles (400km) southwest of Kabul. (AFP)
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Death by stoning
TEHRAN A man was stoned to death in western Iran for adultery. Jafar Kiani’s partner, Mokarameh Ebrahimi, was given a stay of execution while her case is reviewed. Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for such executions to be stopped. Twenty people convicted of rape and assaults are to be hanged in Tehran, possibly in public, the judiciary said. (AFP, Reuters)
Daughter of despair
BOMBAY An 8-year-old Indian girl was rescued by fishermen after her father threw her into a river because he could not afford treatment for her kidney ailment. Phool Chand, a fruit vendor in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh, had been told by doctors that it would cost almost £4,000 to treat his daughter, according to police. Mr Chand, who has two other children, is now missing. (AP)
Verdict on bias
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MASSACHUSETTS A man who said that he did not like homosexuals, was racist and a habitual liar, to avoid jury duty was rebuked by a judge, who referred the case to prosecutors. Judge Gary Nickerson told Daniel Ellis: “In 32 years I have quite frankly never confronted such a brazen situation of an individual attempting to avoid juror service.” Mr Ellis could face perjury charges. (AP)
Taste of justice
MINNEAPOLIS Thom Pham, a restaurant owner who saw a couple run out without paying their $410 (£202) bill, found them finishing a second meal in another of his premises. Police arrested two men, one of whom was dressed as a woman and wearing a wig. “They were either very dedicated fans of Mr Pham’s restaurants or incredibly unlucky,” a police spokeswoman said. (AP)