INDIA
HIV cases seen half of previous estimates
NEW DELHI — India has roughly 2.5 million people infected with HIV, less than half the number of cases that previous studies estimated, the health minister and international AIDS analysts said yesterday.
The drastically reduced numbers come from expanded surveys and an improved methodology, providing a far more accurate portrait of India’s HIV epidemic, said Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss.
An earlier United Nations study estimated 5.7 million HIV cases, which would have been the highest total in the world.
According to the new data, India, which has a population of 1.1 billion, has fewer HIV cases than South Africa and Nigeria.
BRITAIN
Man with al Qaeda attack plans jailed
LONDON — A British court sentenced a man described by police as a terrorist “sleeper” to nine years in jail yesterday for possessing a trove of al Qaeda computer material, including documents suggesting hitting nightclubs and airports.
The court recommended Omar Altimimi, 37 — a failed asylum seeker living in Bolton in northern England whose precise identity police say they cannot determine — be deported after serving his sentence.
He was convicted in Manchester Crown Court of six charges of possessing material for the purpose of terrorism and two money-laundering charges.
CANADA
Outsider named to head Mounties
OTTAWA — Less than a month after an investigation found the culture inside the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to be “horribly broken,” Ottawa took the unprecedented step yesterday of naming an outsider to head the troubled federal force.
William Elliott, a senior bureaucrat and former national security adviser to two prime ministers, will become the first ever civilian to become commissioner of the 26,000-strong Mounties.
The Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper acted in the wake of two independent investigations that castigated the RCMP for a number of errors.
SWEDEN
Rules tightened for Iraqi refugees
STOCKHOLM — Sweden is tightening asylum rules that made it the top European destination for refugees from Iraq, immigration officials said yesterday.
Previously granted asylum based on the general turmoil in their homeland, Iraqis now must show that they face specific threats of violence if they are sent back, Sweden’s immigration authority said.
More than 18,000 Iraqis arrived in Sweden seeking asylum over the last two years, the highest number recorded in Europe and more than double the number allowed into the United States since the start of the Iraq war.
From wire dispatches and staff reports
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