Car bomb kills 9 in northern Syria

AFP, Beirut

A car bomb killed nine people including four civilians in a Turkish-held border town in northern Syria on Saturday, a Britain-based war monitor said. Two children were among those killed in Tal Abyad, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing. The area has been shaken by repeated such bombings since Turkish troops and their Syrian proxies seized a strip of border land including Tal Abyad from Kurdish forces in a cross-border operation last month.

Kenya landslide kills a dozen people

AFP, Nairobi

At least 12 people were killed in Kenya when their homes were swept away in a landslide during ferocious rainstorms, local government officials said yesterday. Their homes were hit overnight Friday amid torrential rains in Kenya’s West Pokot region, 350 kilometres (220 miles) northwest of the capital Nairobi. “Twelve bodies have been recovered, and a search for more is going on,” West Pokot County Commissioner Apollo Okello told journalists yesterday.

Pope Francis reaches Japan to preach

anti-nuclear message

AFP, Tokyo

Pope Francis arrived in Japan yesterday, where he is expected to deliver a robust anti-nuclear message of peace in the only country to have suffered an atomic bomb attack. The 82-year-old Argentine is fulfilling a long-cherished ambition to preach in Japan, where years ago he hoped to be a missionary. He arrived in Tokyo in heavy rain and high winds, the white cape of his papal outfit blowing up around his face as he stepped gingerly down the staircase from the Thai Airways plane that carried him from the first stop of his tour in Thailand.

Bougainville

independence

vote starts

AFP, Buka, Papua New Guinea

Joyous voters in the Pacific island chain of Bougainville cheered and sang as they flocked to the polls Saturday at the start of a long-awaited referendum on independence from Papua New Guinea. In the early morning sun, more than 1,000 people waited eagerly to cast their ballots at one polling station in the main city of Buka, as others—festooned in grass garlands—formed makeshift choirs that stomped through the streets, waving independence flags, blowing bamboo pipes and chanting in chorus.