Terrorist’s death deemed suicide

Cairo, Egypt The ringleader of three recent attacks that targeted Western tourists in Egypt has committed suicide, the prosecutor general said Saturday.

The official said 27-year-old Ashraf Saeed Youssef died Friday in the hospital he’d been transferred to a week ago for treatment after hitting his head several times against the wall of his prison cell.

Youssef, detained on April 30, is believed to be the mastermind of the April 7 suicide bombing near a tourist bazaar that killed three tourists, and leader of the group that also carried out a bombing and tour bus shooting the day he was arrested.

The attacks deepened fears of fresh violence in Egypt, which endured a bloody campaign by Islamic extremists in the 1990s.

Election advocates beaten and seized

Baku, Azerbaijan Azerbaijani protesters demanding free elections were beaten back Saturday by police, who arrested dozens as they broke up a banned rally in the oil-rich former Soviet republic on the Caspian Sea four days before the inauguration of a new pipeline.

Tension between the government and the opposition in the tightly controlled country has increased since an October 2003 election in which Ilham Aliev replaced his late father, Geidar Aliev, as president in a vote the opposition said was marred by fraud. A parliamentary vote is scheduled for November.

Officials had forbidden the opposition to protest, citing security concerns four days ahead of the visit of foreign leaders who will attend a ceremony marking the opening of Azerbaijan’s portion of the U.S.-backed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

The violence broke out as groups of protesters tried to defy the ban and make their way to a central square in the capital, Baku, shouting “Freedom!” and “Free elections!”

The clashes came amid a wave of change in the former Soviet Union, where protests over alleged election fraud brought opposition forces to power in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

Opposition assembly gathers inside Cuba

Havana With shouts of “Freedom” and the singing of the Cuban national anthem, more than 200 people on Friday opened a rare opposition assembly in communist Cuba, uninterrupted by authorities despite the expulsion of European lawmakers, journalists and others who planned to attend.

Martha Beatriz Roque, the meeting’s lead organizer and a former political prisoner who attempted a similar gathering nine years ago, called it “a point of departure” for future work.

Several years in the planning, the general meeting of the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society was aimed at bringing together diverse opposition groups to discuss promotion of a Western-style democracy in Cuba.

It was marred by infighting among some opposition groups and the expulsion of several foreigners from the country.