Foreign news in brief 06/03/2012

Iran orders US marine retrial

Iran’s supreme court has ordered the retrial of a former US marine who was sentenced to death in January on charges of working for the CIA.

Amir Hekmati, 28, the first American to receive a death penalty since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, was born in Arizona to parents of Iranian origin. He is acused of receiving special training at US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before heading to Iran for an intelligence mission.

New fine for refusing to lift veil

Muslim women in New South Wales will have to remove veils to have their signatures witnessed under new laws giving Australian officials authority to look under religious face coverings. From 30 April, officials such as justices of the peace and lawyers who witness statutory declarations or affidavits without making identity checks will be fined A$220 (about £150).

Controller faces charges over crash

A POLISH rail controller will face criminal charges over the head-on collision of two trains that killed 16 people near the southern town of Szczekociny late on Saturday. An investigation has indicated that the controller made a mistake while setting the mechanisms routing the trains, sending one the wrong way down the track at high speed.

Tibetan kills herself in China protest

Another young Tibetan has reportedly burned herself to death in China in protest against Chinese rule in Tibet. Student Tsering Kyi, 20, doused herself with petrol and set herself on fire in Maqu, Gansu province, making her the 24th ethnic Tibetan to die this way in the past year.

Rivals blame each other over shooting

Venezuela’s government and opposition have blamed each other for a violent melee at a campaign stop on Sunday by presidential challenger Henrique Capriles in which several people were injured by bullets.

Shots were fired as he toured a poor Caracas district.

MP forced to quit over nose job

Egypt’s ultra-conservative Islamic al-Nour party has forced one of its MPs to resign from parliament after he was found to have lied in claiming he suffered facial bruises in a car-jacking, when in fact he was recovering from a nose job. The party prohibits plastic surgery.