Around the world

Australian charged in mummy smuggling

CAIRO — An Australian teacher who allegedly stuffed his luggage with 2,000-year old animal mummies and religious figurines wrapped as gifts was arrested Wednesday and charged with smuggling antiquities, an Egyptian airport security official said.

The 61-year teacher was heading to Thailand when a security official became suspicious of the wrapped figurines that were placed amid souvenir ceramic pots in his suitcase.

When security officials opened the case, they found two mummies of a cat and an ibis, a long-beaked bird, both dating to 300 B.C. The confiscated collection also included 19 figurines of the revered ancient Egyptian gods of Horus and Thoth, wrapped as gifts.

somalia

Embattled president is expected to resign

The president of Somalia's beleaguered transitional government, a former warlord who has been widely blamed for his country's deepening crisis, is expected to resign over the weekend, several Somalian officials said Wednesday.

President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed faces a litany of challenges, including a powerful Islamist insurgency; a rancorous Parliament that is threatening to impeach him; and neighboring countries, such as Kenya, that have gotten fed up with him for blocking peace efforts .

"Yusuf was an obstacle to peace," said Ibrahim Isaaq Yarow, the transitional government's deputy information minister. "The parliamentarians were congratulating one another today when they heard the news that the president is resigning."

The question is, will his resignation, if it indeed takes place, make a difference? Somalia's government controls no more than a few city blocks in a country nearly the size of Texas.

israel

Palestinian artillery pounds Israeli targets

JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants from Gaza increased the range and intensity of their rocket fire against Israel on Wednesday as the Israeli security Cabinet weighed options that include broader military action or efforts to renew a truce that recently expired.

More than 60 rockets and mortars were fired at southern Israel by the afternoon, the Israeli military said. The rockets slammed into the Israeli border town of Sderot, the yard of a house and a water park in the coastal city of Ashkelon, an Israeli factory at Nir Oz near the Gaza border, and hit a house outside the western Negev town of Netivot.

The strikes caused extensive damage and widespread panic among the residents but no serious injuries.

Scores of adults and children were treated for shock, the emergency medical service said.

russia

Another batch of new ICBMs is put on duty

MOSCOW — News reports say the military has commissioned another batch of new intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Russian news agencies quote a statement from the Strategic Missile Forces as saying the Topol-M missiles were put on duty Wednesday in Teikovo. The news agencies say the missiles are mounted on heavy off-road vehicles, but do not say how many were deployed.

Teikovo is a small town about 150 miles northeast of Moscow.

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