Explosion in Baghdad results in 1 death
BAGHDAD -- An explosion rocked a market Thursday in east Baghdad, killing one person and injuring 12, according to Iraq's military.
The military said the blast in the capital's Sadr City in the Habibiya neighborhood was caused by a car laden with highly explosive materials that blew up while passing through a popular used-furniture market. It sent a cloud of black smoke above the area. Shortly afterward, a crowd gathered around the wreckage of a charred car and a burned-out van. A fire engine was parked nearby.
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A military statement said one person was killed and 12 injured, according to a preliminary investigation. Five vehicles were burned, it added. It did not say what caused the detonation.
The driver of the car was killed in the explosion, the statement said.
Iraq's president condemned the attack, calling it a "shameless" attempt by terrorist groups to destabilize the country during the holy month of Ramadan.
"We stand firmly against these attempts," Barham Salih tweeted.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Disputed policing bill passes in France
PARIS -- France's parliament passed a security bill Thursday to extend police powers despite criticism from civil-rights activists who fear it threatens efforts to denounce police abuse.
The bill was approved 75-33 at the National Assembly, where President Emmanuel Macron's party, which proposed the measure, has a large majority. The Senate already has adopted the bill.
"Policemen and gendarmes are the republic's children and they must be protected because they protect us every day," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said after the vote.
To quell criticism, lawmakers redrafted the most controversial article, which now says that anyone with "obvious" harmful intent who helps identify on-duty police officers faces punishment of up to five years in prison and a fine equivalent to almost $90,000.
Tens of thousands of protesters marched in Paris in November to denounce the initial provision that was making it illegal to simply publish images of police officers with harmful intent.
Opponents say the new draft remains vague and subject to interpretation by police officers. They also fear it will intimidate people trying to fight police abuse and discrimination by taking and publishing pictures and videos.
6 detainees in Beirut blast ordered freed
BEIRUT -- The Lebanese judge leading the investigation into last year's huge blast at Beirut's port on Thursday ordered the release of six people, including security officers, who had been detained for months, the state news agency reported.
It was not immediately clear what triggered the release of the men, who include an officer who had written a detailed warning to top officials about the dangers of the material stored at the port.
Nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrates, a highly explosive material used in fertilizers that had been improperly stored for years, exploded Aug. 4, killing 211 people, wounding more than 6,000 and damaging nearby neighborhoods.
Judge Tarek Bitar was named to lead the investigation in February after his predecessor was removed after legal challenges by two former Cabinet ministers he had accused of negligence.
The state-run National News Agency said Bitar ordered the release of the six, including Maj. Joseph Naddaf of the State Security Department and Maj. Charbel Fawaz of the General Security Directorate. The four others are customs and port employees.
The six will be banned from traveling outside Lebanon, according to a judicial official who added that 19 people are still being held, including the head of the customs department and his predecessor and the port's director-general.
Jailed Russian's associate is convicted
MOSCOW -- A top associate of Russia's imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny was convicted of trespassing Thursday and handed a suspended sentence of one year community service after she tried to question an alleged security operative believed to be involved in Navalny's poisoning with a Soviet-era nerve agent.
A court in Moscow found Lyubov Sobol, a politician and a key figure in Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, guilty of forcing her way into the apartment of a relative of the alleged operative whom Navalny had previously duped into revealing details of his poisoning.
Sobol condemned the verdict as a "shame and disgrace" and vowed to appeal.
"In the meantime, a (criminal) case into the attempt upon Navalny's life hasn't been even opened," she said in a tweet.
Navalny is serving a 2½-year prison sentence for a 2014 embezzlement conviction that he says was fabricated and the European Court of Human Rights declared "arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable." For more then two weeks, he has been on a hunger strike over prison officials' refusal to allow a visit from his doctor after he developed severe back and leg pain.
