Briefly
Film on Iraqi village wins prize in Spain
Madrid, Spain A film about Iraqi villagers desperate for a satellite dish as they await the U.S. invasion won the top prize Saturday at Spain’s leading film festival.
The honors for “Turtles Can Fly” concluded the San Sebastian festival, after nine days of showings that featured the debut of Woody Allen’s new film “Melinda and Melinda” and lifetime achievement awards for Allen, Jeff Bridges and Annette Benning.
Director Bahman Ghobadi’s Iraq war film relates the story of Kurdish villagers who receive news that the war is drawing closer.
The award for best actor went to Ulrich Thomsen for his work in the Danish film “Brothers” – another military story, this time about Afghanistan. The woman who plays the soldier’s wife, Connie Nielsen, won best actress.
The trophy for best director went to China’s Xi Jinglei for her film “Letter from an Unknown Woman” – about a man in the late 1940s who learns he has a child from a short-lived romance with a woman he does not remember.
The jury’s special award went to Goran Paskaljevic for his story of Bosnian war refugees squatting in the apartment of a Serb returning to seek a new life.
Test adds new missile to Iran’s arsenal
Tehran, Iran Iran added a “strategic missile” to its military arsenal after a successful test, and the defense minister said Saturday his country was ready to confront any external threat.
The report by state-run radio did not say whether the test involved the previously announced new version of the Shahab-3 rocket, capable of reaching Israel and U.S. forces stationed in the Middle East, or a different missile.
Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani refused to give details about the missile for “security reasons,” but he said Iran was “ready to confront all regional and extra-regional threats,” according to the radio.
Israel destroys 35 Palestinian homes
Gaza City, Gaza Strip Israeli army bulldozers razed 35 homes in a Palestinian refugee camp Saturday, a U.N. official said, a day after a resident of a nearby Jewish settlement was killed by mortar fire from the area.
The army said most of the demolished structures in the Khan Younis camp were uninhabited and served as cover for militants shelling the nearby settlement of Neve Dekalim.
However, after troops withdrew Saturday, dozens of Palestinians pulled clothes, kitchen utensils, schoolbooks, mattresses and other belongings from the rubble.
The incursion began just after midnight Friday with a missile strike that killed a 55-year-old Palestinian and wounded five other people.
White supremacists rally at Valley Forge
Valley Forge, Pa. About 100 white supremacists rallied at Valley Forge National Historical Park on Saturday as nearly twice as many opponents heckled them from a nearby hillside.
Both groups were outnumbered by federal law enforcement officers.
Neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members shouted slogans from a stage at the park, where about 11,000 Revolutionary War soldiers commanded by George Washington camped from December 1777 to June 1778.
The Minnesota-based National Socialist Movement, which sponsored the rally, claims Washington held separatist and anti-Semitic views – a position disputed by most historians.
Jeff Schoep, commander of the NSM, launched the rally with an attack on Jews, who he said planned “the destruction of all races through the evils of race mixing.”
Other speakers criticized America’s role in the Iraq war, calling it “Israel’s War.”
Man pays $37,500 for Koresh’s ‘68 Mustang
Fredericksburg, Texas A car wash owner placed a winning bid of $37,500 on Saturday on an automobile once owned by Branch Davidian leader David Koresh.
Donald Feldpausch, 64, said he didn’t go to the classic car auction in Fredericksburg with the intention of buying the 1968 Chevrolet Camaro but changed his mind when he saw the vehicle.
The black, V-8 Camaro was captured in news footage as a tank pushed the vehicle out of its path during the 1993 siege of the Waco Branch Davidian compound. The siege ended with Koresh and nearly 80 followers dying as the complex near Waco burned to the ground.
“What he did was horrible, but I don’t want to get into the politics of it,” Feldpausch told the San Antonio Express-News. “The Koresh name doesn’t bother me. I guess it’s sort of like buying a home after somebody committed a murder in it.”
Koresh drove the Camaro routinely and had stamped “David’s 427 go God” on the engine block.
Feldpausch, of San Antonio, said he plans to store and ultimately resell the restored Camaro.