Suicide bomber kills 47 at prayer service

At least 47 people were killed and more than 100 injured Tuesday when a bomber blew himself up in the port city of Karachi at a massive gathering to celebrate the birthday of the prophet Muhammad, authorities said.

The deadly blast struck during an outdoor evening prayer service at a Karachi park. Afterward, angry mobs lashed out at security forces, setting dozens of vehicles ablaze, including ambulances and fire trucks, and also damaging two cinemas.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Karachi, on Pakistan’s southern coast, has been the scene of sectarian violence in the past between the country’s majority Sunni Muslims and its Shiite Muslim minority.

Thousands of Sunni worshipers had massed in Nishtar Park, Karachi’s biggest venue for religious and political gatherings, to mark Muhammad’s birthday, a national holiday here.

The dead included at least two prominent Sunni clerics from the area. Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao confirmed late Tuesday that 47 people were killed, a number likely to rise.

Jerusalem

Israelis formally end Sharon’s tenure

The Israeli Cabinet on Tuesday formally ended the five-year tenure of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been comatose since suffering a stroke in January, designating acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as his successor.

The appointment will go into effect at midnight Friday, 100 days after Sharon’s stroke, when the 78-year-old leader will be categorized as permanently incapacitated under Israeli law.

Olmert will serve as acting prime minister until he forms a new government, following the victory of his centrist Kadima party in the March 28 election.

Darmstadt, Germany

European craft enters Venus orbit

A European spacecraft moved into orbit around Venus on Tuesday, successfully completing a critical stage of a mission to explore the hostile climate and atmosphere of Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor.

Officials at the European Space Agency’s control center in Darmstadt cheered, clapped and embraced as a green line indicating a clear signal from the Venus Express appeared on their screens, a sign it had completed the maneuver inserting it into orbit.

A short while later, scientists received the first data from the probe and praised the technical phase of the Venus mission – ESA’s fourth to a celestial body – as a success.

Over the next several weeks, scientists will turn on the seven instruments on the probe and run them through tests. By June, they are expected to begin gathering information on how Venus, while similar to Earth in size and geological makeup, wound up with such a hot, dense atmosphere swathed in clouds of sulfuric acid.

Ramallah, West Bank

Hamas plans rallies for promised funds

Fed up with unmet promises of aid for the cash-starved Palestinian Authority, Hamas is organizing protests across the Arab and Islamic world to pressure governments to send money, a Hamas leader said Tuesday.

Hamas’ refusal to renounce its violent, anti-Israel ideology after its victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in January has led Israel, the United States and the European Union to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars from a government they view as terrorist.

Hamas initially boasted that it would make up the shortfall by appealing to the Arab and Muslim world. But Arab states have so far failed to back up their rhetorical solidarity with the Palestinians with money, so Hamas is now pinning its hopes on grass-roots support.