World news
Tanker truck full of gas hits buses, kills scores
Tehran, Iran
A tanker truck full of gasoline crashed into public buses in southeast Iran, killing more than 70 people, state television reported today.
The buses were stopped at a police station on the main road between Bam and Zahedan when the truck smashed into them, the channel said. More than 84 people were hurt, the channel cited a local official as saying.
Russian skinhead expert eulogized
St. Petersburg, Russia A prominent expert on skinheads who was killed in a weekend attack at his home was buried Thursday and remembered as unafraid “to tell the truth.”
The death of Nikolai Girenko, 64, is widely believed to have been in retaliation for his studies of neo-Nazi and racist groups. He was killed by a rifle shot through the closed door of his apartment on Saturday.
An extremist group called Russkaya Respublika claimed responsibility for he killing on its Web site Thursday, calling Girenko an “enemy of the Russian people.”
“Girenko died for the truth, because he wasn’t afraid to tell the truth,” Andrei Zhukov, head of African Studies at St. Petersburg University, said at the funeral.
Girenko’s killing came amid rising concerns over racial violence in Russia.
Dark-skinned immigrants from poverty-stricken former Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus Mountains region as well as other foreigners in Russia are frequent targets of violence by skinheads and other extremist groups.
Girenko had assisted the St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office in the investigation of the 2002 killing of an Azeri watermelon vendor and in investigating a local skinhead group known as Schultz-88.
Israeli troops kill two Palestinians
Jerusalem Israeli troops posted near a Gaza Strip settlement killed two armed Palestinians on Thursday, the army said.
The Palestinians were just yards from an army outpost responsible for protecting the Jewish settlement of Dugit when soldiers spotted them and opened fire, the army said.
Troops found the bodies of two Palestinians in bulletproof vests and armed with submachine guns, ammunition clips and grenades, the army said.
In a separate shooting just before midnight, troops near the Gaza settlement of Bedolah saw a Palestinian digging in the sand, a military official said. Soldiers fired in the air, but when the Palestinian didn’t leave they fired and hit him, the official said.
It was still unclear on Thursday whether the Palestinian was killed or wounded.
China denies detaining bishops
Beijing China on Thursday denied Vatican claims it had detained three bishops from the communist country’s underground Roman Catholic church.
A Vatican spokesman said that a bishop from the county of Xuanhua was taken into police custody and had not been heard from since May 27.
A bishop in the town of Xiwanzi was held from June 2-12, while the bishop of Zhengding county was held for five days, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue denied the claims and insisted that China “protects religious freedom.”
China ordered Roman Catholics to cut ties with the Vatican in the 1950s.
Police arrest bombing suspect
Madrid, Spain Police arrested a Spaniard in connection the Madrid terror bombings, accusing him Thursday of transporting explosives used in the attack.
The suspect, whose name was not released, was arrested in the Canary Island of Las Palmas where he was staying with some relatives, authorities said.
Eleven other Spaniards have also been arrested and charged in relation to the theft or transport of the explosives used in the March 11 attacks, which killed 190 people and wounded more than 2,000.
Authorities have blamed Islamic militants with possible links to al Qaeda with carrying out the bombings.
Thirty people in total have been charged so far either with mass murder or collaborating with or belonging to a terrorist organization. Fifteen remain in custody.