World Scene

LIBYA

Gadhafi uses broadcast to claim son still alive

BENGHAZI | Libyan state television broadcast images Wednesday of a man it said was Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s youngest son in an attempt to refute rebel claims that he had been killed in a NATO airstrike.

Rebels claimed on Friday that 27-year-old Khamis Gadhafi, commander of one of the best-trained and -equipped units in the Libyan military, was killed in the western front-line town of Zlitan.

The Gadhafi regime dismissed the claim and said the rebels were only trying to deflect attention from the killing last week of the opposition’s military commander, possibly by other rebels.

The images on television showed Col. Gadhafi’s son at a Tripoli hospital visiting people wounded in a NATO airstrike and said it was on Tuesday. If the claim is genuine, it would be the first time Khamis Gadhafi has been seen in public since reports of his death.

MEXICO

Anti-tech terrorists claim credit for bombings

MEXICO CITY | A radical group that opposes nanotechnology has claimed responsibility for at least two bomb attacks on researchers in Mexico. It also praises the “Unabomber,” whose mail bombs killed three people and injured 23 in the United States.

A manifesto posted this week on a radical website mentions at least five other Mexican researchers whose work it opposes, and lauded Theodore Kaczynski, who is serving a life sentence for bombings that targeted university professors and airline executives.

It was issued in the name of a group whose title could be translated as “Individuals Tending Toward the Savage.”

Mexico state prosecutors spokeswoman Sonia Davila said authorities were investigating the authenticity of the manifesto.

However, she added, the description of how the dynamite-stuffed pipe-bomb was constructed matched evidence found at the scene of a small explosion Monday at Monterrey Technological Institute’s campus in the state of Mexico, on the outskirts of the capital. Officials had not revealed details about the device, which injured two professors.

CROATIA

Germany hails ’example’ for EU membership

DUBROVNIK | Germany’s foreign minister on Wednesday hailed Croatia’s path into the European Union as an example for Balkan countries amid fresh tensions between EU hopefuls Serbia and Kosovo.

Guido Westerwelle said after talks in Dubrovnik with his Croatian counterpart Gordan Jandrokovic that Germany hoped all the countries of the former Yugoslavia would join the EU but that there would be no “shortcuts.”

“Anyone can see with the example of Croatia. Those who make an effort and live by European values from the rule of law to economic discipline will be welcomed into the European Union with open arms,” he said.

After wrapping up accession talks in June, Croatia is on course to become the EU’s 28th member in mid-2013.

NORWAY

Police convinced shooter acted alone in massacre

OSLO | Investigators increasingly believe the man who confessed to killing 77 people in last month’s attacks in Norway planned and committed the slaughter on his own, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Anders Behring Breivik detonated a bomb outside government buildings in Oslo on July 22, killing eight people. He then massacred 69 people at a youth camp on an island outside the capital, police said.

There was initial speculation that others were involved in the attack. However, prosecutor Christian Hatlo said that after 40 hours of questioning police are fairly certain Breivik acted alone and that he appears to be telling the truth.

RUSSIA

Muslim leader tries to curb liquor sales

NAZRAN | The head of Russia’s mainly Muslim Ingushetia region has set up a body of mullahs and officials to clamp down on black-market alcohol sellers during the holy month of Ramadan, his spokesman said Wednesday.

Officially designed to curb illegal sales, the move appeared to take aim at alcohol consumption in general, much of which is sold underground. Ingush leader Yunus-Bek Yevkurov described the new body as a “morality police.”

Since the collapse of communism 20 years ago when alcohol was readily available throughout the Soviet Union, Russia’s Muslim regions have become increasingly dry as they undergo an Islamic revival.