International news briefs

Published on Saturday 4 October 2008 20:01

UNITED STATES A JUDGE has ordered a Texas doctor and his wife not to distribute video footage of Anna Nicole Smith's breast augmentation surgery in 1994.

The order settles a lawsuit filed last year by Howard Stern, the executor of Smith's estate, who was trying to stop Dr Gerald Johnson and his wife from distributing the tapes of the former glamour model who died last year.

Stern maintained that Smith never consented to the taping or to allowing the footage to be seen by memorabilia dealer Thomas Riccio, who got tapes from the Johnsons.

Riccio's daughter edited the footage into a five-minute tape, scored with music similar to the theme from the film Jaws.

PAKISTAN

CURRENT US economic troubles are proof that Muslims are on the verge of victory, a prominent American member of al-Qaeda said in an English-language video released yesterday.

In a half-hour video message, Californian Adam Gadahn urged Pakistanis to unite against their government and US forces, and taunted Americans over their economic crisis, relating it to their military interventions.

"The enemies of Islam are facing a crushing defeat, which is beginning to manifest itself in the expanding crisis their economy is experiencing," said Gadahn in a clip of the message distributed by the SITE Intelligence Group, a Washington-based monitor of militant websites.

Gadahn, 29, grew up near Los Angeles. He was charged in 2005 with one count of treason and two counts of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organisation.

AUSTRIA

POLICE say a man has murdered his parents-in-law by setting them on fire with a home-made flame-thrower.

Chief investigator Anton Kiesl said the 48-year-old set the couple, both in their 80s, alight as they lay in bed in their home in the village of St Magdalena am Lemberg late on Friday.

Kiesl said the man fled and attempted to commit suicide.

PAKISTAN

VILLAGERS collected the corpses and body parts yesterday of at least 20 people, including several suspected Arab militants as well as three children, killed by a US missile strike overnight.

A pilotless drone aircraft launched the attack late on Friday, targeting a tribesman's house in Mohammad Khel, a village 20 miles west of Miranshah in North Waziristan, a known sanctuary of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants close to the Afghan border.

Villagers combed the wreckage at daybreak, looking for survivors and bodies. "We found body parts scattered all over the place in the ruins, someone's hand, someone's leg," said Bakht Ali, one of the villagers.

An intelligence official said a woman and three children were among those killed.

"We now have a figure of 20 dead. That includes eight residents of the house, five other locals and seven foreigners," the official said. The foreigners appeared to be Arabs.

SPAIN

A BOMB exploded outside a courthouse in Spain's Basque region yesterday, causing considerable damage but no injuries.

The detonation in the town of Tolosa was preceded by a telephone warning to a regional road rescue service by a man who said he spoke on behalf of Basque separatist group ETA.

The caller said a bomb would explode by the courthouse at 1.15am yesterday. Officers rushed to the scene, where they found a rucksack and proceeded to cordon off the area. The rucksack exploded at the announced time and blew a large hole in the courthouse, breaking glass all around the building and damaging cars.

Normally, ETA does not claim responsibility for its attacks until weeks after they occur. A new terror offensive has begun in recent weeks following the outlawing of two Basque pro-independence parties on the grounds that they were linked to ETA.

UNITED STATES

INVESTIGATORS have finished searching the scene of Steve Fossett's plane crash in the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

They discovered three more bone fragments late on Friday, Madera County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Erica Stuart said.

They will be sent to a lab to determine whether they are human and a match for the renowned adventurer, right.

Teams of volunteers, as well as local and federal search crews, had combed the site for any evidence that could help piece together the mystery of Fossett's plane crash.

He vanished on September 3, 2007, during what was supposed to be a short pleasure flight.

NORTH KOREA

NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-il, thought to have suffered a stroke in August, made his first appearance in about 50 days, state media said yesterday.

Last month, US and South Korean officials said Kim, 66, may have suffered a stroke in August, raising questions about leadership in Asia's only communist dynasty as Pyongyang backed away from an international nuclear disarmament-for-aid deal.

North Korea's official media said Kim watched a football match between two universities. The last report of a public appearance by Kim was in mid-August, when state media said he visited a military unit.