Ireland: Militant gets 14 years for N. Ireland bombing
A veteran anti-British militant was sent to prison for 14 years Friday for helping in the deadliest bombing in Northern Ireland's history, a sentence applauded in the Dublin court by relatives of the victims.
Colm Murphy, 50, stood stone-faced with arms folded as he listened to the verdict by the three judges of Ireland's Special Criminal Court.
The Omagh car bombing of Aug. 15, 1998, killed 29 people and wounded more than 300. Murphy, an Irish Republican Army dissident, is the only person charged in the bombing.
Prosecutors initially asked for a life sentence, but the judges said the maximum penalty under the recently amended criminal law was 20 years.
Colombia: Bicycle bomb kills 4 policemen, 1 child
A bomb attached to a bicycle exploded in front of a restaurant across the street from a police station Friday, killing four policemen and a 5-year-old girl, and injuring 26 other people.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast. But Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus blamed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Police deactivated two other bombs, said police spokesman Sgt. Alberto Cantillo. One was on a parked bicycle near a police station in northern Bogota and another was in a western residential neighborhood.
The attacks come as negotiators from the government and rebels are trying to hammer out an agreement for a cease-fire in the 38-year civil war.
Shanghai: Company denies using WTC scrap for souvenirs
Even as New Yorkers emotionally debate what kind of memorial should honor those killed in the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack, 50,000 tons of mangled metal from the twin towers have been sold and shipped to China as scrap.
China's largest steel company denied reports that it plans to make souvenirs out of the metal. But officials at Shanghai Baosteel here said that the company did buy scrap from the wreckage of the terrorist attack.
"Scrap from the World Trade Center is cheap, and the quality is good," said Cao Xianggen, an engineer at Baosteel.
For some victims' families, however, the selling of the steel could prove an example of cold-hearted global trade.
The families had appealed to the city of New York to stop the recycling until further clues could be found about the towers' collapse. Officials said the investigation could continue without the wreckage.
Gabon: Death toll from Ebola at 34 in central Africa
Ebola has claimed five more victims in Gabon, news reports said Friday, bringing the death toll from the disease in two Central African countries to 34.
The new deaths were reported in the remote, northeastern town of Mekambo, Health Minister Faustin Boukoubi said.
A total of 26 people have been infected in Gabon, 23 of whom have died, according to World Health Organization figures. An additional 22 people are suspected of having the disease.
Neighboring Republic of Congo has confirmed 16 cases, including 11 deaths, WHO said Thursday.
Ebola is one of the most deadly viral diseases and kills between 50 and 90 percent of those who contract it. It spreads through bodily fluids though not the air and attacks internal organs.
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