News In Brief

Violence kills 28 in Iraq
Afp, Ramadi

Gunmen and suicide bombers driving explosives-rigged vehicles killed 25 police and three civilians in a series of coordinated attacks in Iraq's Anbar province overnight, officials and doctors said yesterday.
Violence in Iraq has reached a level not seen since 2008 and militants, including those linked to al-Qaeda, frequently target Iraqi security forces and other government employees.

Greenpeace piracy charges dropped
BBC Online

 
Russia yesterday dropped piracy charges against 30 Greenpeace activists, replacing them with hooliganism charges, according to officials.
The new charge has a maximum penalty of seven years rather than 15. Greenpeace says it is still "wildly disproportionate".
Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise vessel was seized by Russian forces as activists tried to scale an offshore oil platform. All 30 people on board were detained.

Tuberculosis killed 1.3m in 2012: WHO
Afp, Geneva

Global efforts to rein in tuberculosis helped cut the death toll to 1.3 million last year, but drug-resistant forms of the disease are sparking huge concern, the WHO said yesterday.
The TB toll is the world's second-highest for an infectious disease, after HIV/AIDS.
The number of people who caught TB in 2012 was estimated at 8.6 million, which was 100,000 down on 2011 and almost half the level in 1990.

White House official fired over tweets
The Guardian Online

A senior White House national security official has been fired after being unmasked as the voice behind a Twitter account that embarrassed the Obama administration by aiming stinging criticism at government figures.
As director of nuclear non-proliferation, Jofi Joseph was helping to negotiate nuclear issues with Iran. But for more than two years, he also sent hundreds of tweets, many of them containing personal insults, using the Twitter handle @NatSecWonk. Joseph, 40, told Politico he deeply regretted his tweets.

Iran spares life of hanging survivor
Afp, Tehran

Iran has decided to spare the life of a convicted drug trafficker who survived a hanging, media reports yesterday quoted Justice Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi as saying.
The reports follow calls from within Iran and appeals from international rights groups against the man found alive in a morgue facing execution for a second time. Iran has one of the highest rates of execution in the world, with more than 500 cases last year and some 508 executions so far this year, according to Human Rights Watch.