Protest over land claims intensifies
A mob of Canadian Indian protesters hijacked a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle over the weekend and tried to run down a Canadian police officer, police said Saturday.
The hijacking Friday night was near the site of a 3-month standoff between Mohawk protesters who claim the land and police under orders to remove them.
The Indians surrounded the U.S. Border Patrol vehicle and dragged out its three occupants. They then drove the vehicle toward a Canadian police officer, but he was pulled out of the way and suffered minor injuries, Ontario Provincial Police Constable Doug Graham said.
Police issued arrest warrants for seven protesters on a battery of charges, including attempted murder. The stolen vehicle was recovered.
The protesters say the site was part of a large land grant dating to 1784, but the provincial and federal governments say the land was surrendered in 1841 for construction of a highway.
KATMANDU, Nepal
King suffers loss of veto authority
Nepal’s Parliament stripped King Gyanendra of his power to veto legislation, the latest step to curtail his authority and turn him into a figurehead.
The new law endorsed by legislators late Saturday scraps the king’s right to reject bills and laws passed by Parliament, Speaker Subash Nemwang said Sunday.
Lawmakers also will no longer need to seek the king’s approval before signing a bill into law, he said.
“This regulation has eliminated any and all authority the king had in Parliament. From now on the Parliament is independent to draft new laws and enforce them,” Nemwang said.
It was the latest in a string of laws enacted by Parliament to dramatically cut Gyanendra’s authority after weeks of protests against his dictatorial rule forced him to relinquish powers in April.
ROME
Brain-dead woman gives birth, dies
A brain-dead woman kept alive artificially for more than two months gave birth to a premature baby girl, doctors at a Milan hospital said.
A few hours after the Saturday birth, the machinery artificially keeping the 38-year-old woman alive was shut off, doctors at Milan’s Niguard hospital said.
The baby girl, born two months early, was breathing on her own Sunday, doctors said.
The baby, named Cristina after her mother, was born by emergency Caesarian section and weighed just over 1.5 pounds, the doctors told reporters. The woman’s last name was not released to protect the family’s privacy.
Doctors decided to deliver the baby after the woman’s blood pressure plunged and the fetus experienced heart rhythm problems, the hospital said.
The hospital said the woman was hospitalized in March after suffering the rupture of a cerebral aneurysm, and she was soon declared brain dead; she spent 78 days in a brain-dead state.