In brief: U.N. consultant gunned down in Egypt
CAIRO – An Egyptian woman who worked for the United Nations as a freelance consultant was fatally shot in the head while driving through an upscale Cairo neighborhood on Sunday, security officials said.
It was not immediately clear whether the woman, identified as 41-year-old Nermeen Gomaa Khalil, was targeted or killed in a random crime. Police said she was shot by unidentified gunmen passing in another car, but no one has been arrested.
Khalil was shot in broad daylight while driving her SUV on one of Cairo’s busiest streets in the neighborhood of Mohandiseen, according to a security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. Khawla Mattar, director of the U.N. Information Center in Egypt, said Khalil was a consultant with a women’s fund at the United Nations in Cairo and also worked at a medical lab.
Afghan provincial judge assassinated
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan officials on Sunday reported the assassination of a provincial judge from a restive eastern province. His 8-year-old daughter was killed along with him, they said.
The victim of the latest shooting, on Sunday evening, was Mohammad Nasir, who led the appeals court in Kunar province, which lies near Pakistan’s tribal areas and has been the scene of heavy fighting over the last year. The killing occurred as the judge was visiting family in neighboring Nangarhar province.
Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a provincial spokesman in Nangarhar, said Nasir was ambushed in his vehicle on his way home from a family visit, and that the shooting also injured two women and five children, all believed to be relatives.
CARACAS, Venezuela – Youthful state governor Henrique Capriles won Venezuela’s first-ever opposition presidential primary Sunday by a wide margin, emerging as the single candidate who will try to end President Hugo Chavez’s 13 years in power.
Capriles, the 39-year-old governor of Miranda state, faces a tough task in ousting Chavez, a charismatic campaigner with a loyal following and the full powers of the state to back his candidacy in Oct. 7 elections.
Opposition election chief Teresa Albanes announced the preliminary results, saying that Capriles won about 62 percent of the vote, beating Zulia state Gov. Pablo Perez by a margin of more than 30 percentage points.
Tibetan nun sets herself on fire
BEIJING – An 18-year-old Tibetan nun has set herself on fire in western China in the latest such protest against Beijing’s handling of the vast ethnic Tibetan regions it rules, an overseas activist group said.
Free Tibet said in a statement Sunday that the nun had died after setting set herself ablaze Saturday. The young woman, identified as Tenzin Choedon, was a nun at the Mamae Nunnery in Sichuan province’s Aba prefecture, the group said.
It said Choedon shouted slogans of protest against the Chinese government before setting herself on fire at a junction close to the nunnery.
“Soldiers and police came immediately and took her away,” Free Tibet said. “Soldiers then surrounded the nunnery and sealed it off.”
As many as 18 monks, nuns and ordinary Tibetans have set themselves on fire over the past year, and Free Tibet says at least 12 died from their injuries.