World in brief: Shiite-Sunni battles kill 40, wound 43
Gunbattles between majority Sunnis and minority Shiites left at least 40 people dead and 43 wounded in remote northwestern Pakistan after men opened fire on Shiite Muslims, a Pakistani official said Saturday.
Arbab Mohammed Arif Khan, secretary for law and order in Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal regions, said authorities had imposed a round-the-clock curfew to control the situation in Parachinar in North West Frontier province bordering Afghanistan.
“People from both sides damaged each other’s property on Friday and Saturday, and sporadic clashes are still continuing there,” Khan said.
ATHENS, Greece
Cruise ship’s captain charged
The captain of a cruise ship that sank off an Aegean Sea island, sending more than 1,500 passengers and crew onto rescue boats, was charged Saturday with causing a shipwreck through negligence.
The 469-foot Sea Diamond sank into the sea after hitting a well-marked and charted reef on Thursday, in fair weather, inside the Greek island of Santorini’s sea-filled volcanic crater.
The ship’s Greek captain was also charged with breaching international shipping safety regulations and polluting the environment, a Merchant Marine Ministry spokeswoman said. Five other officers were questioned, but the spokeswoman was unable to confirm a state TV report that they also had been charged. All six were set free but will provide new testimony next week.
The ship had been minutes away from docking under the spectacular cliffs that make Santorini one of Greece’s top tourist destinations.
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan
American blasts off in Russian rocket
A Russian rocket carrying the American billionaire who helped develop Microsoft Word roared into the night skies over Kazakhstan on Saturday, sending Charles Simonyi and two cosmonauts soaring into orbit on a two-day journey to the international space station.
Climbing on a column of smoke and fire into the clouds over the bleak steppes, the Soyuz TMA-10 capsule lifted off at 11:31 p.m. local time, casting an orange glow over the Baikonur cosmodrome and dozens of officials and well-wishers watching from about a mile away.
The capsule turned northeast and moved downrange before entering orbit about 10 minutes later. It was scheduled to rendezvous with the station Monday.
Among those bidding farewell was Simonyi’s friend Martha Stewart, who watched the launch from a location separate from other spectators.
Simonyi, a 58-year-old native of Hungary, paid $25 million for the 13-day trip, the fifth such paying “space tourist,” or “space flight participant,” as officials prefer to call them.
He is to return to Earth on April 20 along with Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria.