News In Brief

Abdullah, 2009 runner-up, enters Afghan vote
Afp, Kabul

Abdullah Abdullah, the suave former foreign minister who came second in Afghanistan's fraud-tainted 2009 election, yesterday entered next year's presidential race as the deadline for nominations loomed.
Abdullah pulled out of a second-round run-off in 2009 after collecting about 30 percent of the vote, allowing President Hamid Karzai to retain power in an election that was badly marred by cheating and violence.

Typhoon Wutip batters Vietnam; 3 killed
Afp, Hanoi

Typhoon Wutip left a trail of destruction in its wake with at least three people reported dead in Vietnam yesterday, roofs ripped off thousands of homes and dozens of fishermen missing.
High winds ripped the roofs off around 95,000 houses and tens of thousands of hectares of crops were destroyed after the typhoon -- packing winds of up to 103 kilometres an hour -- hit the communist country late Monday, authorities said.

Sanjay Dutt gets 14-day leave from jail
Pti, Pune

Actor Sanjay Dutt yesterday left the Yerawada jail here for Mumbai on a 14-day leave sanctioned to him on eligibility criteria, jail authorities said.
Dutt, serving sentence under the Arms Act for illegal possession of weapons in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, granted bail on ground of good conduct, jail authority said.

Suicide bomber kills five Iraq police
Afp, Tikrit

A suicide bomber killed five police in Iraq yesterday, an officer and a doctor said, as an al-Qaeda front group claimed a wave of deadly bombings.
The attack in Tikrit, which hit the counter-explosives police headquarters for Salaheddin province, also wounded seven police. The bombing came a day after 13 bombs in and around Baghdad killed at least 50 people.