Killing of militant triggers unrest
A Palestinian militant with ties to Hamas was killed in a car bomb Friday, unleashing factional unrest that left three others dead and 35 wounded, in the first direct threat to the Islamic group’s new government.
Followers of the militant blamed security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement for the assassination, raising the possibility of wider clashes just two days after Hamas assumed power.
The militant, Abu Yousef Abu Quka, was a senior commander of the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella group of about 200 gunmen that has been linked to explosions of Israeli tanks and a deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic convoy in 2003.
Hamas took control of the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday after trouncing Fatah in legislative elections in January. It has pledged to restore order in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, but Palestinian security forces, most of them affiliated with Fatah, are involved in the violence, and Hamas has little control over them.
Copenhagen, Denmark
Denmark aims to improve image
Denmark will launch a campaign to improve its global image, which was tattered after a Danish newspaper published caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, the prime minister said Friday.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the campaign was not initiated because of the cartoon crisis but that the uproar had given it additional impetus.
“We would have done so anyway. But the cartoon crisis has, of course, underlined the necessity of a reinforced marketing campaign,” he said.
The Danish government said it wants to attract more foreign investors, students and tourists to the country. It would market Denmark as a “creative and open nation, as a nation of education,” Fogh Rasmussen said, without giving details.
Warsaw, Poland
Ex-leader charged over martial law
Prosecutors filed charges Friday against Poland’s last communist leader, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, for his imposition of martial law in 1981 as the Soviet-backed regime tried to crush the Solidarity pro-democracy movement.
The National Remembrance Institute, a state body that investigates communist-era crimes, said in a statement that it charged Jaruzelski with violating the constitution for the crackdown that began on Dec. 13, 1981, and led to the jailing of tens of thousands of people.
Jaruzelski, 82, responded by repeating his insistence that he imposed martial law to prevent an invasion by the Soviet Union, which controlled Poland during the communist era.
Jaruzelski also was charged with leading an “organized criminal group of a military nature having as its goal the carrying out of crimes that consisted of the deprivation of freedom through internment,” the statement said.
If convicted, he could face up to 11 years in prison.