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World in Brief: 4/11/2014

TURKEY: The retrial of 236 military officers accused of plotting a coup to overthrow the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan when he was prime minister began in Istanbul yesterday.

Originally, 326 officers were convicted of plotting the downfall of the Islamist government in 2003 and received sentences of up to 20 years’ imprisonment.

But the constitutional court ruled in June that their right to a fair trial had been violated, releasing many of them prior to retrial.

 

NAMIBIA: Human rights campaigners greeted yesterday’s confirmation by the Supreme Court of a 2012 ruling that health workers had sterilised HIV-positive women without their consent.

The Southern Africa Litigation Centre said that the ruling sent a message to government to stop the practice.

The case concerned the coercion of three mothers to sign sterilisation consent forms they did not fully understand, but such allegations have been documented since 2007.

 

EGYPT: Security forces escaped injury yesterday when an explosive device was detonated as they began demolishing houses in Rafah on the Palestinian border.

The demolitions are taking place to create a buffer zone as a means to halt weapons smuggling.

Rafah and surrounding areas in the Sinai Peninsula have been under a state of emergency for over a week since 31 troops were killed in a militant assault.

 

PAKISTAN: Police spokesman Nadeem Khokhar announced yesterday that the death toll from Sunday’s suicide bombing near the border with India had risen to 60.

More than 100 people, who are still in hospital, were also wounded.

The bomber set off his explosives near a paramilitary checkpoint in Lahore when hundreds of people were returning from watching an army parade.

 

ARGENTINA: President Cristina Fernandez is being treated at a Buenos Aires hospital for a fever after entering the clinic on Sunday afternoon. 

Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich said that Ms Fernandez would have to suspend a visit by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet that had been planned for today.

Ms Fernandez, who is approaching the final year of her presidency, has had various bouts with poor health.

 

NIGERIA: Two people were killed by a suicide bomber yesterday as he detonated explosives on the edge of a Muslim Brotherhood procession in the north-eastern city of Potiskum.

Brotherhood members arrested two men suspected of being the bomber’s accomplices and refused to hand them over to the military. 

Soldiers then fired several shots into the air and one bullet killed a Muslim Brotherhood member.

 

SIERRA LEONE: The government announced the death from Ebola yesterday of Dr Godfrey George, medical superintendent of Kambia Government Hospital in the north of the country.

Dr George is the fifth local medic to die of the disease.

His death represents a blow to efforts to keep desperately needed healthcare workers safe in a country that in 2010 still had just two doctors for every 100,000 people.

 

GREECE: Development Minister Nikos Dendias disclosed yesterday that the government was looking at a scheme to allow mortgage holders to pay discounted rates for up to 15 years.

The plan is to persuade banks to grant loan-holders the right to effectively freeze payments on 30 per cent of the money borrowed to buy their home.

Athens hopes that this would reduce the scale of loan defaults.

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