World Digest
Dissident again faces death in Iran

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The original sentence handed down to Hashem Aghajari in November 2002 provoked the biggest student demonstrations in years and highlighted the power struggle between reformists and conservatives in Iran.

The Supreme Court lifted the death sentence in February 2003, but a court in the western province of Hamedan then reviewed the case and reimposed the sentence, according to the province's chief judiciary official, Zekrollah Ahmadi.

However, "the Supreme Court has to look again at the verdict," Ahmadi said. Aghajari's lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, said only that "the sentence is not final."

A history professor at a Tehran teachers' college, Aghajari was convicted in 2002 of insulting Islam and questioning the rule of hard-line clerics. He made the remarks in a speech to students in Hamedan, 190 miles southwest of Tehran.

14 democracy activists imprisoned in Bahrain

MANAMA, Bahrain — Bahrain has arrested 14 opposition activists petitioning for democratic reforms in the pro-Western Gulf Arab state who will face life in prison if convicted, a prosecutor said yesterday.

Opposition groups have circulated a petition demanding constitutional amendments to give greater powers to parliament's elected assembly, which is on an equal footing with a chamber appointed by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.

"They face charges of calling for change to the political system, provoking hatred and trying to destabilize public security," Deputy Public Prosecutor Ahmad Shinaishin said.

Bahrain, the Gulf's banking hub and home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, has introduced some reforms, but the opposition, led by the country's majority Shiite Muslims, want more rights in the Sunni-ruled island state.

The men, mainly aged 18 to 25, were arrested Friday and are being held without bail pending trial, Shinaishin said, adding that they could be kept in temporary detention for up to 45 days.
 
Protest crackdown killed 120 in Senegal, U.N. report says

DAKAR, Senegal — Security forces and pro-government militias in Ivory Coast killed at least 120 people, including many innocent civilians, in a two-day crackdown on a banned opposition protest in March, a United Nations report said.

The report, shown to Reuters yesterday, said the violence was a "carefully planned and executed operation" by security forces and shadowy militias in the main city Abidjan "under the direction and the responsibility of the highest authorities of the state."

67 more Nigerians die in Muslim-Christian clashes

JOS, Nigeria — Police said they had recovered 67 corpses yesterday after new fighting between rival Christian and Muslim tribes in a remote farming town in central Nigeria.

Sunday's attack by a Christian Tarok militia on Muslim Fulanis in Yelwa town raised the death toll from three months of ethnic violence to at least 410, according to unofficial figures.

The conflict is rooted in competing claims over the fertile farmland of southern Plateau state in the heart of Africa's most populous nation.

Also ...

Pakistan and China will sign a deal today for the construction of a nuclear power plant, the second such plant to be built with the help of Beijing, officials said yesterday in Islamabad. ... The death toll from an accidental explosion of two fuel trucks in a bazaar in western Afghanistan's Herat province rose to 50 yesterday after more victims succumbed to their injuries, an official said.