SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea seized a South Korean fishing boat in waters near their eastern sea border, the South Korean Coast Guard said Sunday, straining already high tensions between the two Koreas.
The 41-ton boat was believed to have been detained after entering the North's exclusive economic zone, where foreign fishing boats are banned, the coast guard said in a statement.
There was no immediate confirmation from North Korea that its forces had impounded the squidding vessel. But the North Korean government, angry over a South Korean naval exercise due to end Monday, had said it would respond with "strong physical retaliation" and had warned civilian vessels to stay clear of the maritime border between the two Koreas.
BAGHDAD -- The governor of the Iraqi district of Niniveh survived an assassination attempt in the city of Mosul Sunday, but explosions around the country left 16 people dead and 27 injured.
The latest violence followed massive blasts in Basra late Saturday which left 45 dead.
Two bombs targeted Governor Atheel al-Najifi's convoy in the center of Mosul in the assassination attempt, but he was not injured. Whistlebower released
JERUSALEM -- An Israeli nuclear whistleblower who spent 18 years behind bars was released from jail Sunday after serving an additional three months for violating his release terms.
Mordechai Vanunu, 55, was a technician at Israel's top-secret nuclear reactor next to the desert town of Dimona. In 1986 he carried out of the country hundreds of pictures he took of the interior of the reactor and gave them to the London Sunday Times.
On his release in 2004, Mr. Vanunu was forbidden from speaking to foreigners, including journalists. He was jailed three months ago for contacting journalists and other foreigners.
ASPEN, Colo. -- Olara Otunnu, the Ugandan opposition leader who plans to run against President Yoweri Museveni next year, will return to face what he called "trumped up" charges of sedition and promoting sectarianism.
Mr. Otunnu, president of the Uganda Peoples Congress party, was initially ordered to appear in court last week in the East African nation after he refused two requests to meet with police about remarks he made in a radio interview in April.
During the broadcast, he called for independent probes into atrocities in northern and central Uganda and the killing of civilians in Kampala in September, he said in a telephone interview today from Aspen.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Bahrain's foreign minister said Sunday the country has no plans to follow its Persian Gulf neighbors in banning some BlackBerry services because security fears do not outweigh the technological benefits.
His comments come as device maker Research in Motion Ltd. is facing opposition by a number of countries around the world, to the way its encrypted e-mail and messenger services are managed.
WARSAW -- The death toll in flooding in central Europe rose to 11 as Poland's interior minister said Sunday that two more people had died.
The flooding has struck an area near the borders of Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic.
First Published: August 9, 2010, 4:00 a.m.