Pakistan

Sunni Muslims riot in Karachi after cleric killed in drive-by

Thousands of Sunni Muslims rampaged through Karachi, a volatile southern Pakistani city, on Sunday, ransacking property and stoning vehicles after unidentified gunmen assassinated an influential pro-Taliban cleric.

Enraged by the drive-by shooting of Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, rioters set fire to banks, shops, a police station and a KFC fast-food restaurant, and traded gunfire with security forces, leaving more than a dozen people injured.

Tens of thousand of mourners later gathered for the evening funeral, where police fired warning shots above the crowd.

Shamzai, in his 70s, had met Osama bin Laden and was a strong supporter of Afghanistan’s former Taliban regime. The soft-spoken cleric was shot dead as he traveled in a pickup to his Sunni Muslim religious school in the east of the city.

Israel

Sharon threatens to dismiss Cabinet if withdrawal plan fails

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon tried to push forward his Gaza withdrawal plan during a tense seven-hour meeting of his divided Cabinet on Sunday, threatening to fire recalcitrant ministers and reshuffle his government if he failed to obtain a majority.

The meeting ended without a vote, and there was growing uncertainty over the fate of Sharon’s government.

Sharon wants to withdraw Israeli soldiers and settlers from the entire Gaza Strip and evacuate four West Bank settlements. Sharon told ministers Sunday he was determined to get his plan approved even if he has to “change the makeup of the government or take unprecedented political steps,” one participant said on condition of anonymity.

Sharon has said withdrawing from Gaza would boost Israel’s security and help it hold on to chunks of the West Bank in a final peace deal — a position President Bush supports.

Puerto Rico

Oldest person dies at 114

Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan, the world’s oldest person and the last human being on earth born in the year 1889, died Saturday of pneumonia in Rio Piedras, a suburb of San Juan. She was 114 years and 272 days old.

Her death was confirmed for the Los Angeles Times by Dr. L. Stephen Coles of the University of California, Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, which verifies human age claims for the Guinness Book of Records.

Coles’ group and Guinness officially recognized Iglesias-Jordan as the oldest person in the world only a few weeks ago.

“The real secret was in the genes,” said Robert Young, an Atlanta-based senior claims investigator for the Gerontology Research Group, of Iglesias-Jordan’s longevity. Young discounted Iglesias-Jordan’s own attribution to her long life: always cooking with pork fat.

The title of world’s oldest person now goes to Hendrikje Van Andel-Schipper of the Netherlands, who was born June 29, 1890.

Young said Sunday that “Aunt Hennie,” the new title holder, is the first person in some time to inherit the crown at “a mere 113.”