Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era

WORLD

Pakistan to probe death of corruption prosecutor French woman freed in Mexico Yemen: US drone strike kills 7 U.S. protests Palestine placard Iraq attack hits funeral

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's top judge Wednesday ordered a judicial investigation into the death of a state prosecutor who had been building corruption charges against the prime minister.

The prosecutor, Kamran Faisal, was found dead Friday at his government lodgings in Islamabad, hanging from the ceiling. Although the initial autopsy determined that Faisal had committed suicide, his family and some colleagues said they suspected foul play.

A media storm erupted after it emerged that Faisal had been one of several prosecutors investigating accusations that Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf had taken kickbacks during his tenure as minister for water and power between 2008 and 2011.

MEXICO CITY -- A Mexican Supreme Court panel voted Wednesday to release Florence Cassez, a Frenchwoman who says she was unjustly sentenced to 60 years in prison for kidnapping and whose case became a cause celebre in France, straining relations between the two countries.

A police convoy with sirens flashing escorted a white sports utility vehicle out of the prison where Cassez had been held later Wednesday, presumably carrying Cassez to the Mexico City airport. Relatives of kidnap victims angrily shouted "Killer!" as the vehicle pulled away.

The five-justice panel voted 3-2 to order Cassez released because of procedural and rights violations during her arrest, including police staging a recreation of her capture for the media. The justices pointedly did not rule on her guilt or innocence, but said the violations were so grievous that they invalidated the original guilty verdict.

SANAA, Yemen -- Yemeni officials say a U.S. drone strike on a car outside the capital of Sanaa has killed at least seven suspected al-Qaida militants.

The officials say the drone attack took place Wednesday near the town of Khawlan, some 20 miles southeast of the capital. Military officials and tribal witnesses say the car was destroyed, and burnt bodies could be seen inside the wreckage. Al-Qaida in Yemen is considered among the world's most active branches of the network.

UNITED NATIONS -- U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice objected Wednesday to the Palestinians' latest bid to capitalize on their upgraded U.N. status when their foreign minister spoke at Security Council while seated behind a nameplate that read "State of Palestine."

It was the first Palestinian address to the Security Council since the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Nov. 29 to upgrade the Palestinians from U.N. observer to non-voting member state.

Rice said that the United States does not recognize the General Assembly vote in November "as bestowing Palestinian 'statehood' or recognition."

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A crowded tent full of Turkmen funeral mourners in northern Iraq was transformed into a mass killing ground Wednesday by a suicide bombing that left at least 35 people dead and 117 wounded, regional officials and tribal leaders said, calling it a genocidal attack meant to further stoke the already-inflamed sectarian tensions in the country.

Both the dead and wounded victims included a number of high-ranking regional dignitaries, military officers, professors and religious men among the Turkmen population in an area in the Kurdish north.