The world in brief

LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY

“What disturbs the

breeze of our Arab

Spring and fills our

hearts with sadness is the scenes of slaughter and torture

committed by the Syrian regime against

our brothers and sisters in Syria.”

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil,

leader of Libya’s National Transitional Council Article, this page

13 die in rioting at Honduran prison

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - At least 13 people died during an uprising by armed inmates at a Honduran prison Thursday, one of them decapitated and the others killed by a fire started by the rioters, authorities said.

Varying reports by local and national authorities said as many as 18 inmates were killed, but national Police Chief Jose Ramirez said only 13 bodies had been sent to the morgue by late afternoon.

The unrest came six weeks after a fire at another prison in Honduras killed 361 inmates.

Yair Mesa, police commissioner of the rough northern city of San Pedro Sula, said Thursday’s riot had been brought under control.

“The uprising has been put down without the need to fire shots,” Mesa said by telephone from inside the prison.

Mesa said most of the victims apparently died of burns or asphyxiation, but said the causes of death could not immediately be determined because the bodies were so badly burned.

2 from U.N. among 6 slain in Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan - Gunmen killed six people Thursday in a pair of attacks in southwestern Pakistan, one of which targeted local employees of a U.N. agency, officials said.

The assailants opened fire on workers at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as they were riding in a car through Baluchistan province’s Mastung district, killing two people, said police officer Rustam Khan.

A member of the group’s project staff and a hired driver were the two people killed, said a U.N. official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. Another staff member was wounded, he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Earlier Thursday, gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a passenger van in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, killing four Shiite Muslims in an apparent sectarian attack, police officer Shaukat Khan said.Spaniards strike, bogging economy

MADRID - Spanish workers angered by austerity-driven labor changes to prevent the nation from becoming Europe’s next bailout victim slowed down the country’s economy in a general strike Thursday, closing factories and clashing with police as the new-center right government tried to convince investors that the nation isn’t headed for a financial meltdown.

Tens of thousands held protest marches in Madrid and other cities, and the demonstrations turned violent in Spain’s second-largest city of Barcelona, where hooded protesters smashed bank and storefront windows with hammers and rocks and set fire to streetside trash containers.

Traffic was slowed in northeastern Valencia when demonstrators set mattresses ablaze on a highway, and a Molotov cocktail was hurled at a police car in the eastern city of Murcia. Authorities arrested 176 protesters across Spain and said 104 people were injured in clashes, including 58 police officers.