Pirates agree on ransom for ship
Somali pirates have agreed on a ransom for a Ukrainian freighter carrying tanks and other heavy weapons, and it could be released within days, a spokesman said Sunday.
Mikhail Voitenko said the MV Faina could be freed with its crew if agreement is reached on how to get the ransom money to the pirates, who seized the ship off the coast of Somalia in late September. He said there were negotiations on Friday.
“The owner has confirmed there is every reason to hope that it will be released in the coming week,” said Voitenko, editor of Maritime Bulletin-Sovfrakht, a shipping news Web site.
Russia sent a missile destroyer to the region after the hijacking to protect other cargo vessels, and the Faina has been watched by U.S. and other warships to prevent the removal of its cargo.
Baghdad
NPR journalist escapes bombing
An American journalist for National Public Radio and three Iraqi colleagues escaped injury Sunday when a bomb attached to their car exploded as it was parked along a street in west Baghdad.
Ivan Watson, a 33 year-old reporter for NPR on temporary assignment in Iraq, said he had gone to interview people in a kebab cafe a few yards from an Iraqi army checkpoint. Watson, who is normally based in Istanbul, Turkey, was accompanied by producer and translator Ali Hamdani and two drivers who refused to be named for security reasons.
The group returned to their armored car, which was parked out front, about 45 minutes later but were stopped by Iraqi soldiers who said they had been informed minutes earlier that a bomb was attached to the car, Watson said. The bomb, which had been placed underneath the driver’s side, exploded about 15 feet from the journalists. It destroyed the car but nobody was injured, according to NPR.
Geneva
Voters OK heroin, reject marijuana
Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved Sunday a move to make permanent the country’s pioneering program to give addicts government-authorized heroin. At the same time, voters rejected a proposal to decriminalize marijuana.
Sixty-eight percent of the 2,264,968 voters casting ballots approved making the heroin program permanent. It has been credited with reducing crime and improving the health and daily lives of addicts since it began in 1994.
Some 63.2 percent of voters voted against the marijuana initiative.
The heroin program has helped eliminate scenes of large groups of drug users shooting up openly in parks that marred Swiss cities in the 1980s and 1990s, supporters say.
The United States and the U.N. narcotics board have criticized the program as potentially fueling drug abuse, but several other governments have started or are considering their own programs modeled on the system.