47 are convicted for role in terror attack

October 18, 2008

RABAT - A Moroccan court has convicted 47 people and sentenced them to up to 30 years in prison over a suicide bombing last year at a Casablanca Internet cafe. A criminal court gave the longest jail term of 30 years to Abdelkrim Ougard on Thursday. He was charged with forming a criminal gang with the aim of committing terrorist acts, as well as making explosives, theft, forgery, and failure to denounce terrorism. (AP)

WASHINGTON - The United States said yesterday that North Korea has stepped up its disabling of a nuclear reactor it had been threatening to reactivate, a sign of progress in six-nation nuclear disarmament talks that had been on the verge of collapse. The State Department said the North has replaced seals, reinstalled surveillance, and restored equipment that had been removed at the Yongbyon plutonium reprocessing plant. (AP)

ANKARA - Turkish warplanes carried out successful airstrikes yesterday on the main bases used by Kurdish rebels inside Iraq, the military said. The jets bombed Mount Qandil, an area about 60 miles inside Iraq, where the leadership of the Kurdistan Workers' Party is believed to be hiding. It was the latest Turkish strike against hideouts from which the rebels launch attacks against targets inside Turkey. (AP)

BANGKOK - Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat refused to step down yesterday, a day after the army's commander suggested that he resign over deadly force employed by police to suppress an antigovernment protest last week that left one person dead and more than 400 injured. (AP)