World news
Four men arrested in $70 million heist
Sao Paulo, Brazil Police detained four men in connection with one of the world’s biggest heists and recovered more than $2 million of the $70 million stolen from Brazil’s Central Bank, officials said Friday.
The recovered cash was found hidden in three pickups on a vehicle transporter truck several hundred miles from the ransacked Central Bank vault in the northeastern city of Fortaleza.
Authorities said two men in the transporter and two others who own a car dealership have been placed under temporary arrest, allowing them to be held for 10 days without being charged.
Federal police spokeswoman Sabrina Albuquerque said investigators have discovered that the dealership received cash for several vehicles.
When police intercepted the transporter near the southeastern city of Belo Horizonte, 1,180 miles from Fortaleza, it was carrying 11 vehicles. She said a tip prompted police to stop the truck.
A search that followed uncovered about $2 million stashed inside the seats, bodywork and spare tires of the pickups. “We still have to inspect eight cars on the transporter, and we think more cash will be found,” she added.
Police said the robbery occurred last weekend when the bank was closed. They said about 10 men spent three months digging a tunnel – about 260 feet long and 28 inches high – from a house they had rented to the bank’s vault.
Prime minister admits mistreatment of Kurds
Ankara, Turkey The prime minister acknowledged Friday that the Turkish government had mishandled its relations with the nation’s minority Kurds, saying their long-running grievances need to be addressed through greater democracy, not repression.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s admission, believed to be the first by a Turkish leader, came during a speech in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the troubled Kurdish southeast region and a hotbed of Kurdish nationalism.
The crowds applauded wildly as Erdogan termed the Kurdish issue “my problem, our collective problem.”
“Mistakes have been made,” he said. And to ignore past mistakes, the prime minister declared, was not “fitting behavior for great nations such as Turkey.”
Erdogan’s speech won strong praise from the Kurdish community.
“It constitutes the foundation for turning a new page in relations” between the government and Kurds, said Diyarbakir Mayor Osman Baydemir.
“The significance of his words cannot be underestimated,” said Sezgin Tanrikulu, chairman of Diyarbakir’s influential bar association. “It’s the first time any Turkish leader is admitting to wrongdoing on the part of the state.”
For decades, Turkey’s estimated 14 million Kurds were dismissed by successive governments as “mountain Turks.” Their ancient tongue, which is distinct from Turkish, was officially banned until the early 1990s. Thousands of Kurdish activists, who demanded official recognition of their ethnic identity, were tortured and jailed. Kurdish insurgents in turn carried out a running rebellion against the government.
Britain denies re-entry to radical Muslim cleric
London The government, expanding its response to Islamic extremism, on Friday banned the return to Britain of a radical cleric whose strident statements provoked public outrage following train and bus bombings last month in London.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke announced that Omar Bakri Mohammed, who has lived in the country for 20 years, is not welcome “on the grounds that his presence is not conducive to the public good.”
The decision came a day after officials detained 10 foreign nationals with plans to deport them for being a “threat to national security.”
Bakri, who was born in Syria, traveled last week to Lebanon, where he was detained by authorities Thursday without explanation. In Beirut, the National News Agency said Friday that a judge ordered his release because he was not wanted on any charges.
Bakri has been the subject of angry commentary in Britain. News media quoted him as saying he would not inform police if he knew of plans for another terrorist attack on the United Kingdom.