World in brief

Hamas official smuggled cash

A senior Hamas official on Friday tried to sneak $817,000 into the Gaza Strip in a pouch under his shirt, the first major cash smuggling attempt by an increasingly desperate Hamas government choked by Western sanctions.

Palestinian security forces confiscated the money at the Egypt-Gaza border, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas – Hamas’ main political rival – ordered a criminal inquiry. Abbas’ decision was bound to raise tensions.

Hamas demanded that the money – all in 500-euro bills – be returned, saying private donors abroad intended it for Gaza’s poor.

Madrid, Spain

Columbus’ remains buried in cathedral

Scientists said Friday they have confirmed that at least some of Christopher Columbus’ remains were buried inside a Spanish cathedral, a discovery that could help end a century-old debate over the explorer’s final resting place.

DNA samples from 500-year-old bone slivers could contradict the Dominican Republic’s competing claim that the explorer was laid to rest in the New World, said Marcial Castro, a Seville-area historian and high school teacher who devised the study that began in 2002.

However, some of Columbus’ remains also could have been buried in the Dominican Republic, he said.

Johannesburg, South Africa

Opposition leader, others arrested

Zimbabwean police arrested a top opposition leader and 70 supporters Friday and held them for more than seven hours for allegedly violating the nation’s restrictive law against most forms of political activity.

Arthur Mutambara, president of one of two factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, was campaigning with his faction’s candidate for today’s special election in a suburb of Harare, the capital, when police arrested them at 8 a.m., according to party officials.

Zimbabwe’s Public Order and Security Act bars political meetings of any size without the written approval of police four days before an event.