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World briefs: FBI probes Libya attack
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WASHINGTON -- FBI agents arrived in Benghazi, Libya, to investigate the assault against the U.S. consulate and left after about 12 hours as the hunt for those connected to the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans narrowed to one or two people in an extremist group, U.S. officials said Thursday.
Agents arrived in Benghazi before dawn Thursday and departed after sunset, after weeks of waiting for access to the crime scene to investigate the Sept. 11 attack. The FBI agents went to "all the relevant locations" in the city, FBI spokeswoman Kathy Wright said. The FBI would not say what, if anything, they found.
Killed were Stevens, a State Department computer expert and two security agents who were former Navy SEALS. Al-Qaida-linked militants are believed responsible.
MANILA, Philippines -- Former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was arrested Thursday on corruption charges related to allegations of misuse of $8.8 million in state lottery funds during her administration.
Ms. Arroyo, who is now a member of the Philippine Congress, checked herself into a government medical facility after the warrant was issued and shortly before it was served. Police officials said she was arrested while in a hospital bed, and was suffering from dehydration and hypertension. It was unclear whether she would be transferred to a jail cell later.
Ms. Arroyo is under investigation in connection with a variety of corruption offenses said to have been committed during her time as president, from 2001 to 2010.
BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi court sentenced an American citizen to life in prison on charges of assisting al-Qaida and financing terrorist activities in Iraq, according to a government statement Thursday.
The Interior Ministry said Omar Rashad Khalil, 53, was recruited by al-Qaida in Iraq in 2005. Mr. Khalil, an architectural engineer, is of Palestinian descent and entered the country in 2001, the ministry statement said.
It released excerpts from a confession it said Mr. Khalil made in which he allegedly admitted to receiving money from a Syrian man in the United Arab Emirates to pay for terror attacks.
SMIR, Morocco -- Moroccan police Thursday escorted from its waters a small yacht carrying women's rights activists claiming to be able to perform abortions on board, after abortion protesters jeered them on land.
The Dutch group Women on Waves sailed the boat around the northern Moroccan harbor with banners advertising an information hotline about abortion, which is illegal in most cases in this North African country.
A day earlier, the group had said a ship that can provide "safe, legal, medical abortions" up until 6.5 weeks of pregnancy was on its way from the Netherlands. The group's founder said abortions had been performed aboard ship in waters off Poland.
TEHRAN -- Most merchants in Tehran's grand bazaar reopened for business Thursday as an unusually large number of police were deployed around the city's black-market money trading district, witnesses reported.
The reopening came a day after a crackdown on suspected speculators led to disturbances and a large protest by Iranians demanding relief from the plummeting value of the currency, the rial.
Economists have attributed the problems to government mismanagement and the Western sanctions imposed on Iran in response to its contentious nuclear program, most notably a severe restriction on the country's ability to sell oil and its expulsion from the global banking network.
-- Compiled from news services
First Published October 5, 2012 12:00 am
