Afghanistan

Taliban holding foreigners

A Turkish transport helicopter carrying at least 11 civilians was forced to make an emergency landing in a Taliban-controlled area in eastern Afghanistan, and the insurgents took all the people on board prisoner, including eight Turks and a Russian, officials said on Monday.

Nigeria

Dozens dead ingunbattles

Dozens of people have been killed in fierce fighting between Nigeria's military and suspected Islamists after troops raided an insurgent hideout in the northeast, a government source said on Monday. Gun battles broke out in the remote fishing village of Baga on Friday, forcing residents to flee the town.

Italy

Berlusconi sex trial delayed

An Italian court on Monday delayed until at least May 13 the resumption of a trial against former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi for allegedly paying for sex with a then-17-year old prostitute. The court postponed the trial while it waits for a decision by Italy's supreme court on whether to consider an appeal by Berlusconi's defense team to move the trial to another city.

United States

5 shot to death in apartments

Gunfire erupted at an apartment complex in a city south of Seattle and five people were shot to death, including a suspect who was shot by arriving officers, police said early Monday. Officers responding to an emergency call at 9:30 pm (local time) on Sunday at the apartments in Federal Way encountered a chaotic scene, with bullets flying.

India

Second manarrested in rape

Indian police arrested a second man on Monday in connection with the rape and torture of a five-year-old girl in New Delhi, but that was not enough to halt protests at perceived police incompetence and corruption.

Neighbors say the child was abducted last week in an alley outside her home in a cramped lower middle-class neighborhood and kept captive by two men in the basement of the same building.

Russia

6 killed in shop shooting

Authorities say a man opened fire in a southwestern Russian town, killing at least six people before fleeing. Officials at the city hall in Belgorod said on Monday that the man opened fire outside a department store, killing five people immediately, including a girl in her early teens. Another victim died in the hospital.

Reuters -AFP

(China Daily 04/23/2013 page12)