World In Brief

Cruise ship stuck for 10 months

ITALY: The Costa Concordia cruise ship that ran aground off the country’s coast is set to be stuck there for another 10 months.

Rough seas at the weekend shifted the vessel an inch and a half in six hours, forcing rescuers and recovery crews to stop work.

Crew member Erika Soria Molina was found dead on Saturday, bringing the toll to 17.

Another 16 people are missing, although rescuers have found another body that has still not been identified.

Soldiers free 14 captured workers

SUDAN: The army has freed 14 of 29 Chinese road builders who had been abducted by insurgents allegedly linked to South Sudan.

Officials said they were in good health and soldiers were trying to find the rest.

The attack has been blamed on the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, a rebel group with links to South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit.

Armed group blow up gas pipeline

SYRIA: State media said an “armed terrorist group” blew up a gas pipeline at dawn today as Syrian troops cleared rebels from Damascus’s suburbs.

The pipeline carries gas from Homs towards the border with Lebanon.

Sana news agency said the explosion happened in Tal Hosh, about five miles from the border city of Talkalakh.

Relatives guilty of ‘honour’ killings

CANADA: Three members of an Afghan family were convicted on Sunday of the “cold-blooded, shameful murders” of three teenage sisters and another woman.

Prosecutors said the trio killed the four women because they dishonoured the family by defying rules on dress, dating, socialising and using the internet.

The jury took 15 hours convict Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Yahya and their son Hamed on four charges of first-degree murder, which carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.