Mexico’s Slim becomes ‘world’s richest’ person
March 11, 2010
Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim is the world’s richest person, jumping past Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the first person from a developing nation to top the list, according to Forbes magazine.
The rise of Slim, the son of an immigrant shopkeeper who amassed a $53.5 billion fortune and bought a major stake in the New York Times, is part of an increased presence on the list of billionaires from emerging countries, said Forbes’ reporter Keren Blankfeld.
Thousands of women murdered in honour killings yearly: UN
March 6, 2010
Some 5,000 women are murdered in honour killings every year, the UN’s top human rights official said Thursday, calling it an “extreme symptom of discrimination” against women.
“It has been estimated that as many as one in three women across the world has been beaten, raped or otherwise abused during the course of her lifetime,” said Navi Pillay in a statement.
63 dead in India temple stampede
March 4, 2010
A senior local government official says that the death toll in a stampede at a temple in north India has risen to 63.
Ashok Kumar says dozens of people were also injured Thursday when thousands of people crowded into the compound of a temple in Kunda, a small town 112 miles (180 kilometers) southeast of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.
14 die in artillery, gun battle in Somalia
March 3, 2010
Chile quake death toll hits 708
March 1, 2010
Heroism and banditry mingled on Chile’s shattered streets Sunday as rescuers braved aftershocks digging for survivors and the government sent soldiers and ordered a nighttime curfew to quell looting. The death toll climbed to 708 in one of the biggest earthquakes in centuries.
In the hard-hit city of Concepcion, firefighters pulling survivors from a toppled apartment block were forced to pause because of tear gas fired to stop looters, who were wheeling off everything from microwave ovens to canned milk at a damaged supermarket across the street.
Nato strike kills a number of Afghan civilians
February 22, 2010
Nato has confirmed that a number of civilians were killed in an air strike in southern Afghanistan on Sunday.
Twenty-seven people died and 10 were injured in the raid in Uruzgan province, the governor told the BBC.
36 die in Morocco minaret collapse
February 20, 2010
A minaret collapsed during Friday prayers — killing 36 people and injuring 71 — at a crowded mosque in the old town of the historic Moroccan city of Meknes, the official MAP news agency said.
Officials blamed the accident on heavy rain that had weakened the minaret at the Bab Berdieyinne Mosque, according to a statement released by the Interior Ministry.
Indo-Pak talks on track
February 16, 2010
India and Pakistan will resume peace talks as planned, government sources said yesterday, despite a deadly restaurant bombing at the weekend that led to calls for the negotiations to be cancelled.
As police scoured security camera footage of Saturday’s blast in Pune, western India, a government source in New Delhi told AFP there was “no change” to a meeting of Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries on February 25.
Assault on Taliban in S Afghanistan begins
February 14, 2010
Thousands of US-led troops backed by helicopters stormed a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan on Saturday in the first major test of President Barack Obama’s new surge policy.
US Marines led the charge on Marjah, a town of 80,000 in the central Helmand River valley controlled for years by militants and drug traffickers.
Nato launches major anti-Taliban offensive
February 13, 2010
US Marines and Afghan soldiers spearheading the ground assault reached the outer rim of the Taliban-held town Saturday, as a major offensive began to break the extremists’ grip over a wide area of their southern heartland.
Punching their way through a line of insurgent defenses that included mines and homemade bombs, the ground forces reached the main canal that marks the northern entrance to Marjah.