EGYPT
Men fire birdshot at prime minister’s convoy
Egyptian police officials say five men in a pick-up truck fired birdshot at the prime minister’s convoy during a traffic argument, not knowing he was inside. Prime Minister Hesham Kandil’s three-car convoy was on a Cairo bridge late Sunday when it encountered the truck, and fired warning shots in the air to get it to move. The men fired birdshot at the convoy. They later told police they didn’t realize the prime minister was inside one of the tinted-windowed cars. The men were promptly arrested.
PAKISTAN
The men have spoken: No women vote
For decades, not a single woman in the dusty Pakistani village of Mateela has voted. And they aren’t likely to in Saturday’s parliamentary election either. The village’s men have spoken. “It’s the will of my husband,” said one woman, Fatma Shamshed. “This is the decision of all the families.” Mateela is one of 564 out of the 64,000 polling districts across Pakistan where not a single woman voted in the country’s 2008 election. The men from this village of roughly 9,000 people got together with other nearby communities to decide their women would not vote on Saturday. either.
SUDAN
At least 20 die in shootout in border area
Sudan and the U.N. say a shootout in a disputed oil-rich border region has left at least 20 people dead, including at least one Ethiopian U.N. peacekeeper and a tribal chief traveling with them. Khartoum’s Interior Ministry said in a statement Sunday that 21 were killed in Abyei district, including Koul Deng Majok, an ethnic Ngok Dinka from neighboring South Sudan, two peacekeepers, and 17 members of the Misseriya tribe. It said Majok’s tribe had failed to inform Misseriya tribesmen they would be visiting the area. Abyei is a sticking point between Sudan and South Sudan.
MEXICO
President commemorates Cinco de Mayo
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto commemorated Cinco de Mayo by urging his countrymen to tackle current problems with the same “unity and commitment” that defeated the French 151 years ago. Pena Nieto said the holiday celebrates principles that, in his words, “encourage the political forces and federal government to pursue a transformative reform agenda that the country demands and needs.” Cinco de Mayo marks the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, when Mexican troops defeated a French army of Napoleon III. The anniversary was marked with a military parade in Puebla.
SPAIN
Aircraft crashes in a fireball at airshow
A historic jet plane crashed into a hangar and exploded in a fireball at an airshow southwest of the Madrid on Sunday, severely injuring its pilot who later died in the hospital, officials said. A spokesman for Spain’s Defense Ministry said Ladislao Tejedor Romero, 35, an experienced jet pilot and assistant to Defense Minister Pedro Morenes, died of his injuries in the serious burns unit of Getafe hospital. Some 3,000 people were at Cuatro Vientos airfield when the plane, one of the first jet-propelled planes to be manufactured in Spain, crashed, sending a fireball and thick black smoke into the air. The cause of the crash was not known.
TANZANIA
Bomb kills one, injures 44 at Catholic church
A woman died and 44 people were seriously wounded when a bomb exploded in a Roman Catholic church in northern Tanzania, a police official said Sunday. The woman died at the hospital as a result of the bombing in the Arusha church just before Mass, which was attended by the papal envoy to Tanzania, said Magesa Mulogo, the regional police commissioner of Arusha. Witnesses reported the bomb was thrown from a motorcycle into the church. Mulogo said the driver of the motorcycle has been arrested. Mulogo said the motive of attack is not known.
FRANCE
Test launch of ballistic missile fails
A French ballistic missile test has ended in failure after the missile destroyed itself just minutes after its launch from a nuclear submarine off the coast of Brittany. The French Defense Ministry said in a statement that the M51 missile was not armed with a nuclear warhead during the test Sunday. Debris from the missile fell in an area that was closed to sea and air traffic. The ministry said it was investigating why the test failed. Sunday’s was the first failure in the six tests of the M51 so far. The ministry began testing the missile in 2006.
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