Pakistan

Five killed, three injured in troops’ cross-fire

Pakistani and Indian troops traded heavy weapons fire Sunday in Kashmir, killing five people and wounding three others in Pakistan’s portion of the Himalayan region, police said.

A 15-year-old girl was hit by shrapnel from an Indian artillery shell that landed near her home in Nakyal, about 160 miles south of Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir, said Raja Ghulam Sarwar, a police superintendent in Muzaffarabad.

Four more civilians were killed in shelling later Sunday, Sarwar said.

Both sides used mortars and artillery across the Line of Control, which splits Kashmir between Pakistan and India.

Moscow

Defense minister orders halt to towing subs

Russia’s defense minister blamed the sinking of a derelict nuclear submarine on a national trait of carelessness and ordered a temporary halt Sunday to the towing of decommissioned subs.

The announcement raised the prospect of further delays in efforts to dispose of more than 100 rotting ships and their reactors, which have been a concern to environmentalists.

The K-159 submarine sank Saturday in the Barents Sea as it was being towed to an Arctic scrapyard where its reactors were to be removed and dismantled. Nine of the 10 sailors aboard died.

Ivory Coast

Assassination, conflict feared in West Africa

With fears of a new conflict on the rise, fighter jets roared over the Ivory Coast last week as security forces rounded up suspects in an alleged plot to assassinate President Laurent Gbagbo.

As for unity — 10 newly erected iron gates, bolted shut and guarded by armed rebels, block the main road that had linked this prosperous country’s north, now rebel-held, to the south.

On July 4, Gbagbo marked the end of nine months of civil war — raising hopes that years of instability might be over.

Last week, authorities in France arrested at least 13 suspects who allegedly were on their way to Abidjan to carry out what Ivory Coast officials claim was a plot to attack Gbagbo.