Gabonese people march against killings
LIBREVILLE, Gabon – Thousands of Gabonese people marched to protest ritual killings, in which people are murdered so their body parts can be used in amulets to bring good luck. Sylvia Bongo Ondimba, Gabon’s first lady, led the event Saturday along with Christian and Muslim religious leaders.
The president of the Association for the Fight against Ritual Crimes, Elvis Ebang Ondo, estimates that Gabon has 20 mutilation killings a year. He said there are more such killings in election years, as some people seek amulets to win government positions.
2 divisive figures enter Iran’s presidential race
TEHRAN, Iran – A pair of powerful and divisive figures registered Saturday to run in Iran’s presidential election, jolting the political landscape ahead of next month’s vote to pick a successor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who still wields enormous influence, and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, a close confident of Ahmadinejad, submitted their official paperwork just before Saturday’s deadline. Each has a good shot at winning the vote, raising a tough challenge to conservative candidates loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The race to choose a successor to Ahmadinejad, who under term-limit rules cannot seek a third mandate, culminates with the June 14 vote.
Rebels fight Syrian troops for key highway
BEIRUT – Syrian rebels on Saturday cut a newly built bypass road linking the capital Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo, an activist group said, while state media reported that government troops have secured a strategic highway between the capital and the southern city of Daraa.
The reported fighting came as an activist group said U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, who left the country last year, met with a rebel commander at a border crossing point with Turkey.
The Aleppo Media Center said Ford met on Thursday with Col. Abdul-Jabbar al-Akidi, head of Aleppo province’s rebel military council, at the Bab al-Salama border crossing point.
It posted a picture and a video of the two men standing on a road just a few yards outside a fence that appeared to be the border between Turkey and Syria.
Quake jolts southern Iran, 15 injured
TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian state TV says a strong 6.2 magnitude earthquake has jolted the south of the country, injuring at least 15 people.
The report said the quake struck the Arabian Sea port town of Jask at 6:38 a.m. Saturday damaging hundreds of homes.
Even moderate quakes can be deadly in the Iranian countryside, where houses are often built of bricks.
A 6.1 magnitude earthquake killed at least 37 in southern Iran last month. Approximately 26,000 people were killed by a 6.6 magnitude quake that flattened the historic southeastern city of Bam in 2003.
Iran is located on seismic fault lines and, on average, experiences at least one slight quake every day.
Associated Press
