A car bomb detonated by remote control exploded Thursday in Baghdad, killing two Iraqis but missing a U.S. military convoy as insurgent violence claimed more than 50 lives throughout Iraq. With violence on the rise after the Jan. 30 election, Iraqi officials announced they would seal the country’s borders for five days this month around a major Shiite religious holiday.
HISTORIC SAUDI VOTE: Saudi men cast city council ballots Thursday in the first regular election in their country’s history. Women were kept away, banned from either running in the elections or voting.
FLOODS KILL 16: Venezuela sent helicopters and navy ships to evacuate thousands of people stranded by floodwaters Thursday as torrential rains began to ease. The death toll from three days of floods and landslides rose to 16.
ABBAS FIRES SECURITY CHIEFS: Reacting to Hamas rocket and mortar fire in the Gaza Strip in defiance of a cease-fire with Israel, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas dismissed his top security commanders Thursday.
SEX TOURISM TARGETED: Brazil is looking to reverse the influx of sex tourists pouring into the country’s northern coast, but efforts to curb the same problem in Asia may be thwarting those efforts. Also hurting the cause: Paid sex is allowed in Brazil, and a twist in the law makes it difficult even to arrest men who pay for sex with girls between 14 and 18 years old.
QUAKE SHATTERED SEABED: The first images Thursday of the seabed battered by the earthquake centered near Banda Aceh, Indonesia, that triggered Asia’s tsunami revealed huge ruptures spanning miles. The images show “scars” more than six miles wide resulting from the Dec. 26 quake, which caused the earth’s plates to clash “like the rumpling up of a carpet,” one official said.
———-
Compiled from news services and edited by Patrick Olsen (polsen@tribune.com) and Drew Sottardi (dsottardi@tribune.com)
