A round-up of today's news in brief
Poll win for Danish ruling party forecast
DENMARK- A projection by Danish national television DR suggested Denmark's ruling centre-right coalition and its ally, the Danish People's Party, would win a majority of 94 seats in the 179-seat parliament yesterday.
In its projection, which was based on 5.1 per cent of votes counted, DR said prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's centre-right governing coalition would win, with the Social Democrat-led opposition trailing with 77 seats. - (Reuters)
Seven dead after Gaza Strip rally
MIDDLE EAST - Hamas has rounded up scores of Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip following a rally that drew more than 200,000 supporters and ended in gunfire that killed seven people, officials said yesterday.
The assembly on Monday, marking the third anniversary of the death of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, was the biggest held by President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group in Gaza since Hamas Islamists seized the territory by force in June. - (Reuters)
Five Mafia chiefs arrested in Sicily
ITALY - Italian police yesterday said they arrested five high-ranking Mafia "military commanders" in Sicily and were carrying out warrants against a further 70 suspected mobsters across Italy.
The commanders had reported directly to the Mafia's new "boss of bosses", Salvatore Lo Piccolo before he was arrested on the southern island of Sicily last week after nearly a quarter century on the run. - (Reuters)
Gunman injures worshippers
SWITZERLAND- A lone gunman used a military assault rifle to fire on a dozen worshippers at an Islamic centre in French-speaking Switzerland late on Monday, injuring one seriously, police said yesterday.
A 23-year-old local man, described by police as a practising Swiss Muslim, was detained. The incident happened in Bussigny- pres-Lausanne near the lakeside city of Lausanne, according to a police statement. - (Reuters)
22 injured in fire in Berne building
SWITZERLAND - A fire in a high-rise building in the Swiss capital of Berne early yesterday left 22 injured, four seriously, according to a media report. - (Reuters)
L:ifting of state of emergency due
GEORGIA - The top US emissary to the crisis-torn Caucasus nation of Georgia said yesterday the country would lift a state of emergency in two or three days. - (Reuters)
Abortions caused China gender crisis
CHINA - China has 18 million more men of marriageable age than women, the result of sex-selective abortions in a country that has traditionally placed more value on boys, state media reported yesterday.
China has about 119 boys born for every 100 girls, but that figure rises to about 122 in rural areas, Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Weiqing, director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, as saying. - (Reuters)
Ancient jaw bone 'new species'
AFRICA- Researchers unveiled a 10-million-year-old jaw bone yesterday they believe belonged to a new species of great ape that could be the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans. The Kenyan and Japanese team found the fragment, dating back to between 9.8 and 9.88 million years, in 2005 along with 11 teeth. - (Reuters)