A round-up of today's world news in brief
Iran defiant after Israeli missile test
JERUSALEM- Israel tested a missile yesterday , prompting talk about its ability to launch nuclear strikes on Iran, while the Iranian president said Israel would regret any attack.
The missile test came after Israeli warnings and accusations about Tehran's atomic ambitions and drew a defiant response from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"The Zionist regime . . . would not dare attack Iran," he told al-Jazeera television. "The Iranian response would make them regret it, and they know this."
Meanwhile, Israeli air strikes killed five Palestinians, including a mother and child, in the Gaza Strip yesterday on Thursday as prime minister Ehud Olmert vowed to wage a "war" to stop rocket attacks on the Jewish state.
This prompted Palestinian leaders to warn that renewed peace talks - spurred by last week's visit by US president George Bush - were at stake. - (Reuters)
US put on Canada torture watch list
OTTAWA- Canada's foreign ministry has put the US and Israel on a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured and also classifies some US
interrogation techniques as torture, according to a document obtained by Reuters yesterday.
The revelation is likely to embarrass the minority Conservative government, which is a staunch ally of both the US and Israel. The document - part of a training course on torture awareness given to diplomats - mentions the US jail at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba where a Canadian man is being held. - (Reuters)
Saudis questioned on women's rights
GENEVA- Saudi Arabia, appearing for the first time before a UN women's rights panel yesterday, faced tough questions over restrictions on "virtually every aspect of a woman's life" in the kingdom.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrim- ination against Women monitors adherence to a 1979 international bill of rights for women. - (Reuters)
Petition criticises Ingushetia poll
NAZRAN- Tens of thousands of people in southern Russia have signed a petition calling their 2007 parliamentary election fraudulent in a rare public display of defiance against authorities.
Last month a reported 99 per cent voter turnout in conflict-scarred Ingushetia posted near unanimous support for Russian president Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, a fact local petition organiser Magomed Evloev said he has disproved. - (Reuters)
Call for internet to combat militants
LONDON- The British government wants the internet industry to help combat militant Islamism on the web in the same way it co-operates in fighting sex crime against children, home secretary Jacqui Smith said yesterday.
In her first major speech on countering Islamist radicalisation, Ms Smith drew an analogy between the militant recruitment of impressionable youngsters on the internet and the online stalking of children by paedophiles.
"Let me be clear. The Internet is not a no-go area for government," she told a security conference.
- (Reuters)