INDIA
Commonwealth Games organizer jailed
NEW DELHI | The spiraling investigation into India’s troubled Commonwealth Games landed its chief organizer and two more officials behind bars on Monday — a long-anticipated arrest after months of allegations and cries of corruption over the event.
India had hoped the two-week international sporting competition in October would highlight its rapid development and boost its role on the world stage.
Instead, it was deeply embarrassed by accusations of graft, construction delays and cost overruns as the games’ budget ballooned by billions of dollars beyond the $412 million price tag organizers had initially estimated.
FRANCE
Muslim leader rejects Islamic extremism
PARIS | A noted Tunisian Islamic thinker urged the world’s Muslims on Monday to reject extremism and restore the true nature of Islam.
Rachid Ghanouchi, a founder of Tunisia’s once-banned Renaissance party, gave the closing speech at an annual Muslim gathering outside Paris in his first visit to France in more than two decades.
“Today, Islam is associated with violence, terrorism … with refusing religious and political diversity, [being] against women’s rights. Today, it is presented as a plague,” Mr. Ghanouchi said.
IRELAND
Real IRA condemns queen’s planned visit
DUBLIN | The Real IRA splinter group has vowed to oppose next month’s planned visit to Ireland by Queen Elizabeth II and to keep killing members of the Northern Ireland security forces.
A masked Real IRA man read a statement to more than 200 Real IRA supporters in Northern Ireland’s second-largest city, Londonderry.
He said the Real IRA would do whatever it could to show that the queen is “not wanted on Irish soil.”
NIGERIA
Voters prepare amid violence
UYO | With hundreds already killed and others frightened from the ballot box, Nigerians are being asked to vote Tuesday in the nation’s volatile gubernatorial elections, this time choosing the pivotal politicians who control billions of dollars in oil money.
Religious tensions are high in Africa’s most populous nation after riots erupted across the country’s predominantly Muslim north last week when results showed Christian President Goodluck Jonathan had clinched the election.
Angry mobs set fire to houses where election workers were staying, and young female poll staffers were raped while charred corpses lined highways.
Tuesday’s gubernatorial vote is the final balloting in Nigeria, following weeks of legislative and presidential elections that ultimately forced some 40,000 people to flee their home.
• From wire dispatches and staff reports
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