Bombers kill 18 as Karzai starts 2nd term

BOMBERS yesterday killed 18 people in Afghanistan, a deadly start to President Hamid Karzai’s second term in office that underscored spiralling insecurity nine years into the US-led war.

The attacks brought to 30 the number of people killed since Karzai was sworn in for another five years on Thursday, pledging to try to bring peace to the nation and take over security from foreign forces in five years.

The nature of Karzai’s election win, with almost a million fake votes cast in his favour, highlighted astounding levels of graft in Afghanistan, now billed by Transparency International as he world’s second most corrupt country. — Sapa-AFP

Conjoined twins awake

THE second of the Bangladeshi conjoined twins that Australian surgeons separated this week is being brought out of an induced coma.

Trishna was the first to be woken and doctors at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital said yesterday that her sister Krishna would soon follow. — Sapa-DPA

Bomb kills Moz children

THREE children were killed and two seriously injured in northern Mozambique after accidently exploding a mortar bomb left over from the country’s past wars.

Parts of the south-east African country are still littered with buried explosives, most of which date to the country’s 1976-1992 civil war. Others were planted by former colonial power Portugal. — Sapa-DPA

Rampaging man kills 4

A GUNMAN went on the rampage in the Northern Mariana Islands in the western Pacific yesterday, killing at least four people and wounding six, including five Korean tourists. — Sapa-AFP

Icebreaker in the clear

A RUSSIAN icebreaker carrying more than 100 tourists, scientists and journalists on an Antarctic cruise has reached clear water after being halted for days by thick ice. — Sapa-AP

Atom smasher in action

THE world’s biggest atom-smasher, which was shut down soon after its inauguration amid technical faults, is set to restart this weekend.

The first beam of sub-atomic particles are expected to be injected into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) “early this morning,” Cern spokesperson James Gillies said, while adding that the timing was not set in stone.

Nestled inside a 27km-long tunnel straddling the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, the LHC promises to unlock scientific mysteries about the creation of the universe and the fundamental nature of matter. — Sapa-AFP

Shun beef, save planet

INDIA, a stronghold of vegetarianism where the cow is a sacred animal for the majority Hindu population, has urged the rest of the world to give up eating beef to help reduce global warming.

Experts on climate change warn that without action the planet’s rising temperatures could unleash potentially catastrophic change to Earth’s climate system, leading to hunger, drought, storms and massive species loss. — Sapa-AFP

US strike kills eight

A US missile attack killed eight people, including foreign militants, yesterday in the second such attack in Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt in two days.

A security official described the target as a Taliban training centre . There were foreigners among the dead, he said, using a term employed to mean al-Qaeda operatives. — Sapa-AFP