World Briefs

Tens of thousands of Muslims marched in Indian Kashmir yesterday to pay homage to a separatist leader killed by police in violent protests over a land row that is testing New Delhi's hold on the troubled region.

Sheikh Aziz, a senior Kashmiri separatist leader, was among at least 22 Muslim protesters killed when police opened fire last week during some of the biggest protests since a separatist revolt broke out in the region 20 years ago.

Yesterday, protesters carrying black and green Islamic flags headed to Pampore, Aziz's hometown. Aziz was a leader of Kashmir's main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference.

Youth knifed to death in street fight

A teenager was stabbed to death during a fight between a group of men in south London, police said yesterday. The 17-year-old Sri Lankan, who has not been named, suffered a serious wound to his neck and was taken to hospital where he later died.

Police had been called to reports of a group of up to eight men fighting in Croydon at 1.33 a.m.

Railway in red, passengers stay away

A controversial railway to Lhasa is still losing money with passenger traffic nearly disappearing from April to June following violent demonstrations in the Tibetan capital, railway officials said yesterday.

The train line from Golmud to Lhasa, inaugurated on July 1, 2006, will be extended to the monastery town of Shigatse and resource-rich Nyingchi in the southeast within the next two or three years.

"Our experience with other lines holds true for this one too, that the initial benefit is economic and social," said Bai Xiaochun, party secretary of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Co, who estimated the 30 billion yuan ($4.37 billion) line is losing 1.2 billion yuan a year.

Nine militants killed in Pakistan clashes

Pakistani artillery and helicopter gunships killed nine pro-Taliban militants in an assault on their hideouts in the restive northwestern Swat valley yesterday, army officials said. Security forces also arrested eight militants in the fighting that followed a search operation in the Kabal area, one of the militant strongholds in the region, 27 km east of Swat's main town of Mingora.

No sandcastles please, you're in Italy

When in Capri, don't wander off the beach in a bikini. If you go to the sea in Eraclea, near Venice, remember that building sandcastles is forbidden. And don't even think about mowing your lawn at the weekend in Forte dei Marmi.

Emboldened by a nationwide crackdown on crime and a government decree giving them extra law-and-order powers, Italian mayors have issued a string of often bizarre by-laws to enhance 'public decorum'.

Public displays of affection in a car can earn you a fine of up to €500 in Eboli, feeding pigeons is off-limits in the centre of Lucca while in Novara groups of more than two people are forbidden from lounging around in parks at night.

Italian newspapers have dubbed this year's holiday season 'the summer of bans'.

Rodrigo Piccoli, 33, called national radio to protest after he was fined €50 for lying down in a park in the northern city of Vicenza to read a book. The mayor has since promised to drop the ban.

Bulgarian prince in coma after car crash

Prince Kardam, the heir to the Bulgarian throne, is in a coma after suffering severe head injuries in a car accident in Madrid but his condition is stable, one of the doctors treating him said yesterday.

"The patient has a serious brain injury," Jesus Medina, head of the medical team at Madrid's Doce de Octubre hospital, told Reuters, adding that the prognosis would not be known until he was brought out of the coma in the next three to five days.

"We can't say how he will evolve at the moment," Medina said. The 46-year-old prince, the eldest son of exiled King Simeon, was injured when his car crashed into a tree on a Madrid highway and rolled on to its roof.