Putin orders inventory of art
President Vladimir Putin ordered top officials to conduct a nationwide inventory of 50 million artworks at Russian museums, concerned that other treasures may be missing following the theft of $5 million worth of valuables from the famed Hermitage.
Putin on Thursday told Cabinet officials to set up a commission by Sept. 1 to conduct the inventory, the president’s office said.
The July 31 announcement that $5 million worth of valuables – including jewelry, religious icons, silverware and richly enameled objects – had been stolen from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg became known only after a routine inventory last fall.
Kabul, Afghanistan
Roadside bombing kills two civilians
Fighting in Afghanistan’s south left 12 suspected Taliban and eight police dead, while a roadside bomb Thursday killed two Afghan civilians in an eastern province, officials said.
The roadside bomb went off in Jalalabad while Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry – the top U.S. general in Afghanistan – visited a U.S. base in the city.
The bomb killed an Afghan man and his grandson who were selling vegetables at a street stall and five other people were wounded, Eikenberry told the Associated Press.
Mohammad Husain, secretary of the provincial police chief, said the blast went off about 20 minutes after Eikenberry and other officials passed in a convoy of vehicles, but U.S. military spokesman Tom Collins said the general did not travel on that road and was unlikely the target.
Mexico City
Candidate’s backers block Treasury
Supporters of leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blockaded Mexico’s Treasury Department on Thursday as electoral officials conducted a partial recount of the disputed presidential election.
The Federal Electoral Institute levied about $6.7 million in fines on all five parties that fielded candidates, citing errors or irregularities in their 2005 financial reports. Lopez Obrador’s Democratic Revolution Party got the biggest penalty, $2.9 million.
Continuing a wave of protests against alleged electoral fraud, dozens of Lopez Obrador supporters blocked the Treasury Department as well as entrances to the main offices of three foreign-owned banks here, chanting “Vote by vote!” and “Long live democracy!”
Bogota, Colombia
Rebels kidnap oil workers
Colombian rebels kidnapped two engineers and a helicopter pilot who were part of a seismographic oil exploration crew, an official said Thursday.
The three Colombian workers were abducted Wednesday in the northwestern state of Choco near the border with Panama, said state Interior Minister Freddy Lloreda.
Lloreda said that Colombia’s second-largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, was believed to be responsible.
Leftist guerrillas frequently target the South American nation’s oil sector with bombings and kidnappings in attempts to extort money from private companies.