LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY "Democracy means majority, whether there is opposition or no opposition." Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, on his electoral victory that came with a near-total opposition boycott Article, 1A15 killed in fighting in Somali capital
MOGADISHU, Somalia - More than 15 people, including five soldiers, were killed in fighting in the Somali capital Mogadishu, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said.
Gen. Ahmed Jilaow Addow was among the soldiers killed by gunmen in Mogadishu, Gedi said in a telephone interview Saturday. More than 10 people were killed north of the capital byunidentified gunmen, he added. A curfew will be imposed in Mogadishu today, police spokesman Abdi Wahid Mohamed Hussein said in a separate interview.
"The killers will be arrested very soon," Gedi said. "We cried when we heard about the killing of these important people, and we will never rest till we arrest" the perpetrators.
The killings mark an escalation in violence in the Horn of Africa nation. A number of Ethiopian soldiers may have been killed Friday after aremote-controlled bomb exploded in the south of Mogadishu, police said.
Ethiopian soldiers helped the United Nations-backed Transitional Federal Government oust an Islamic militia from southern and central Somalia in January. The country has been without a central government since the collapse of Mohammed Siad Barre's administration in 1991.
Putin names head of intelligence service
MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin tapped his former prime minister to head the Foreign Intelligence Service, one of the successors to the Soviet Union's KGB, after vowing to expand the network to counter imbalances with the U.S.
"You know the person well, it is Mikhail Fradkov," Putin said, announcing the appointment in remarks broadcast on state television channel Vest 24 after a meeting Saturday with the presidents of neighboring countries in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Putin on Friday named the former head of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Lebedev as executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which unites the former Soviet countries except Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Putin, a former KGB agent, promised security officials in July to expand the work of the service, known by its Russian abbreviation SVR, amid worsening relations with the U.S. as President Bush pushed plans for a missile defense system in eastern Europe.
Britain's Brown rules out early election
LONDON - Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Saturday ruled out calling an early election, ending weeks of speculation that he would soon seek a stronger mandate for his government.
"I have a vision for change in Britain, and I want to show people how in government we're implementing it," Brown told the British Broadcasting Corp. "I'll not be calling an election."
His announcement comes after opinion polls last week showed the main opposition Conservatives closing the gap with Brown's Labor Party.
Brown replaced Tony Blair as premier in June and does not have to call an election until May 2010. But there has been widespread speculation that he would call an early election to seek his own, five-year mandate and to increase Labor's majority in Parliament. Early election talk intensified after Brown made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Tuesday and said British forces there would be cut by 1,000 by Christmas.
Pinochet's widow, 5 children out on bond
SANTIAGO, Chile - A Chilean court on Saturday ordered the release on bond of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's widow, five children and former associates, two days after they were arrested on corruption charges.
Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes said the three-member panel unanimously agreed to allow 23 relatives and associates of the former dictator to be freed and set bails ranging from $200 to $590. The appeals court ruling upheld Friday's decision by a judge to grant them bail.
Pinochet's two sons - Augusto and Marco Antonio - and the former ruler's secretary, Monica Ananias, were exempted from payment because they had already posted bail in an earlier stage of the case.
On Thursday, Judge Carlos Cerda ordered the suspects' arrest and charged them with misuse of fiscal funds during the 1973-90 dictatorship. The case stems from the late dictator's multimilliondollar bank accounts in the United States and elsewhere.
Those arrested included Pinochet's widow, Lucia Hiriart, his five grown children and six retired army generals, among others.
Hiriart was being held at the Santiago Military Hospital after she reportedly complained of a blood pressure rise.
Front Section, Pages 14 on 10/07/2007