In brief: Russian law targets ‘undesirable’ foreign groups

MOSCOW – President Vladimir Putin signed a bill into law Saturday giving prosecutors the power to declare foreign and international organizations “undesirable” in Russia and shut them down.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have condemned the measure as part of an “ongoing draconian crackdown which is squeezing the life out of civil society.”

The law is part of a Kremlin campaign to stifle dissent that intensified after Putin began his third term in 2012.

The new Russian law allows prosecutors to declare an organization undesirable if it presents a threat to Russia’s constitutional order, its defenses or its security.

Laws passed in recent years already have led to increased pressure on Russian non-governmental organizations. Rights activists fear the new law could be used to extend the crackdown to Russian branches of international groups and the Russian activists who work with them.

Islamic State claims deadly Saudi attack

CAIRO – The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 21 people at a Shiite mosque in Saudi Arabia, warning that more “black days” loom ahead in a direct challenge to the rulers of the Sunni kingdom.

Friday’s attack was the kingdom’s deadliest militant assault since a 2004 al-Qaida attack on foreign worker compounds. However, this Islamic State attack in the village of al-Qudeeh in the eastern Qatif region targeted Shiites, whom ultraconservatives in Saudi Arabia regularly denounce as heretics.

The statement on the Islamic State group’s al-Bayan radio station, read aloud Friday night and posted Saturday morning to militant websites associated with the extremists, identified the suicide bomber as a Saudi citizen with the nom de guerre Abu Amer al-Najdi.

Venezuelan activist begins hunger strike

CARACAS, Venezuela — Jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez said he is beginning a hunger strike and called for a mass anti-government protest next week in a video leaked Saturday.

Lopez has been held in a military prison for more than a year on charges related to his role in leading protests against the South American country’s socialist administration last year.

In the video, the former Caracas area mayor repeats his charge that the government is corrupt and incompetent, and he accuses authorities of killing dozens of people during the 2014 protests, which saw more than 40 deaths.

Lopez’s video offered a rare glimpse of the Harvard-educated opposition leader who has become an international cause celebre among opponents of President Nicolas Maduro.

Political party leader killed in Burundi

KAMPALA, Uganda – The leader of a Burundi opposition party was killed Saturday by unknown assailants in the nation’s capital, Bujumbura, local media reported.

Iwacu, a prominent news organization in Burundi, reported on its website that Zedi Feruzi of the UPD-Zigamibanga party was slain late Saturday in a drive-by shooting in which at least one of his bodyguards also was killed.

His killing, which took place in Bujumbura’s Ngangara district, is likely to raise tensions in this Central African country that has been hit by political unrest since the announcement late last month that President Pierre Nkurunziza would seek another term in office.