In brief: Gadhafi’s son said to be in Niger

NIAMEY, Niger – A convoy carrying ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s son al-Saadi has crossed into neighboring Niger, a spokesman for Niger’s government said Sunday, one of the highest-profile former regime figure to flee to the landlocked African nation.

Al-Saadi, the fugitive ruler’s 37-year-old son, entered Niger in a convoy with nine other people, said Niger Justice Minister Amadou Morou.

“I wish to announce that one of Gadhafi’s sons – al-Saadi Gadhafi – was intercepted in the north of Niger by a patrol of the Nigerien military,” Morou told reporters late Sunday.

He said al-Saadi “has no status at all” in Niger, indicating that he has not been granted refugee status.

At least 240 killed in ferry sinking

STONE TOWN, Tanzania – More than 240 people were killed when a crowded ferry sank off Tanzania’s coast and some 600 have been rescued, figures that indicate the boat was filled beyond capacity, officials said Sunday.

Relatives had claimed 192 bodies and 28 more were awaiting identification on Sunday, said Mohammed Aboud Mohammed, the minister for state in the vice president’s office on the island of Zanzibar. He said around 600 people had been rescued so far and that the government was still looking for the vessel’s captain.

KINGSTON, Jamaica – The bodies of 10 Haitians were recovered from the ocean off the Turks and Caicos Islands on Sunday after the captain of a smuggler’s boat forced the illegal migrants into a rickety, overloaded boat near the reef-fringed shoreline, officials said.

Kendol Morgan, a government spokesman, said at least 10 migrants drowned early Sunday while being transferred to shore by a smaller, wooden vessel. He said the Haitian smuggler’s boat had entered the U.K. Caribbean dependency’s waters illegally,

The bodies of five Haitian women and five men were recovered.

Cleric: End attacks on U.S. troops

BAGHDAD – An anti-American cleric is urging his followers to stop attacking U.S. troops in Iraq so that their withdrawal from the country isn’t slowed down, a call meant to ramp up pressure on Baghdad’s political leaders who are considering asking some American forces to stay.

In a statement posted on his website, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr told his militias to halt attacks against U.S. forces until the withdrawal is finished at the end of the year as required under a security agreement between Washington and Baghdad.

However, al-Sadr warned that “if the withdrawal doesn’t happen … the military operations will be resumed in a new and tougher way.”