World in brief: Blacks, whites face off near court

Ventersdorp, South Africa – A racially charged standoff outside a courthouse where a teenager and another black farm worker were charged with killing a leading white supremacist ended peacefully Tuesday.

The brutal bludgeoning of Eugene Terreblanche, once convicted of beating a black farm worker so badly the man was left brain damaged, has focused attention on simmering racial tensions less than 10 weeks before South Africa hosts the World Cup.

In a musical duel outside the courthouse, whites and blacks sang competing national anthems from South Africa’s racist past and its new reality.

A violent confrontation easily could have erupted after a middle aged white woman sprayed an energy drink on blacks singing “God Bless Africa.”

Instead, police officers rushed to separate the two groups yelling at each other and the only apparent blow struck was thrown by a black police officer whose fist grazed the jaw of a white man.

Maoist rebels kill 70 soldiers

New Delhi, India – Maoist rebels in eastern India killed at least 70 paramilitary soldiers Tuesday, authorities said, underscoring the continued strength of an insurgency that India has tried for decades to wipe out. The dawn attack in Chhattisgarh state was among the deadliest by the guerrillas in memory.

S.R. Kalluri, a deputy police inspector in densely forested Dantewada district where the attack occurred, told local media that the soldiers were on an extended overnight patrol Monday and stopped to rest.

At some point, insurgents learned of their location and “at the break of dawn the Maoists attacked,” Kalluri said. “Now we are chalking a strategy to retaliate.”

American gets 8 years hard labor

Seoul, South Korea – North Korea said today it has sentenced an American man to eight years’ hard labor and a fine equivalent to $700,000 for entering the country illegally and unspecified hostile acts.

Aijalon Mahli Gomes was sentenced after acknowledging his wrongdoing during a court trial Tuesday, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch.

Representatives of the Swedish Embassy in North Korea, which looks after U.S. interests in the country, witnessed the trial at their request, it said.

The North said last month that it arrested Gomes, 30, of Boston on Jan. 25 for trespassing after he crossed into the country from China.

Gomes is the fourth American detained in communist North Korea on charges of illegal entry in little over 12 months.