A roundup of today's other world news in brief
Colombia’s army kills nine rebels
BOGOTA – Colombia’s army said yesterday it had killed nine Marxist rebels in a morning raid on a guerrilla camp in the southern part of the Andean nation.
Colombia has received billions of dollars in US aid to help fight the decades-old insurgency and has seen a dramatic fall in guerrilla violence since President Alvaro Uribe took power in 2002 although attacks still occur.
“Military forces struck a new and overwhelming blow this morning to the FARC, killing in combat nine members of the southern block,” the army said in a statement.
It said the attack took place about 19 miles (30km) from Cartagena del Chaira in Caqueta state.
During the weekend, Colombian forces killed 12 leftist rebels from a unit assigned to protect the FARC’s leader. – (Reuters)
Two artists fined for extremism
MOSCOW – Two artists were found guilty of extremism and ordered to pay large fines by a Moscow court yesterday, for an exhibition that wounded Russian Orthodox sensibilities in juxtaposing religious icons with pornography.
Rights group Amnesty International said the verdict was shameful and “another blow to freedom of expression in Russia”.
A Moscow court cleared leading art curators Yuri Samodurov and Andrei Yerofeyev of a maximum jail sentence of three years for their 2007 Forbidden Art exhibit, which mixed religious icons with sexual and pop-culture images.
But it levied fines of 200,000 roubles ($6,477) and 150,000 roubles, to be paid to the state. Leading cultural figures had appealed to President Medvedev to drop the charges. – (Reuters)