BAKU (Reuters) – Police in Azerbaijan arrested around 30 opposition activists who tried to stage a protest in the capital Baku on Saturday to demand the president’s resignation and dissolution of parliament. Police officers in helmets and wielding truncheons pushed some of the demonstrators on to city buses. Azerbaijan’s weak opposition has been trying to drum up support by staging regular protests since a series of bigger demonstrations in Baku last year which were inspired by the Arab Spring. Each protest has been swiftly broken up by security forces. …
Hindu extremist leader Bal Thackeray dies in India
Bal Thackeray, a Hindu extremist leader linked to waves of mob violence against Muslims and migrant workers in India, died Saturday after an illness of several weeks. He was 86. Syria rebels seize airport near Iraqi border: activists
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Rebels captured an airport used by Syria’s military near the Iraqi border on Saturday, activists said, a move which they said would allow them to maintain their hold on the recently seized border town of Albu Kamal. President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have retaliated by bombing the airport with fighter jets, said Ziad al-Amir, a local activist. Video published by rebel groups showed fighters patrolling a dusty desert air base in Syria’s Deir al-Zor province. Plumes of grey smoke rose from some low concrete buildings as fighters examined several abandoned tanks. …
Car bomb kills seven foreign Shi'ite pilgrims in Iraq
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – At least seven Shi’ite Muslim pilgrims from Iran and Pakistan were killed in Iraq on Saturday when a car bomb went off by a restaurant in a city north of the capital, police and hospital sources said. The attack took place a few days into the holy month of Ashura, which is of special significance to Shi’ite Muslims, who are targeted by al Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate and other Sunni Islamist insurgents. …
Santander plans to invest in Spain's bad bank
MADRID (Reuters) – Spain's Santander plans to invest in the country's so-called bad bank in a sign that healthy domestic lenders are willing to support the entity created to clean up the aftermath of a 2008 property crash. "The bank plans on i nvesting in the bad bank," a spokesman for Santander, Spain's biggest bank, told Reuters on Saturday. Spain has set up the bad bank to siphon off toxic real estate assets from bank balance sheets that date from the property crash. … UN launches aerial bombardment in eastern Congo
A local official says the U.N.’s mission in Congo has launched an aerial attack on the M23 rebel group after fighting resumed following a months long lull in violence.
Egypt: Train hits school bus; 49 children killed
A speeding train crashed into a bus carrying children to their kindergarten in southern Egypt on Saturday, killing at least 49, officials said. Distraught families searched for signs of their loved ones along the tracks and angry villagers berated officials in the aftermath of the latest disaster to hit the country's railway system. Bulgarians rally, demand government resignation
SOFIA (Reuters) – In one of Bulgaria's biggest anti-austerity rallies for years, thousands of people protested on Saturday against the government's handling of the weak economy and called on the cabinet to resign. Su pporters of the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) filled the Alexander Nevsky square in front of Sofia's central Orthodox cathedral and called on the ruling GERB party to go. "Our goal is to revive Bulgaria because the GERB's rule threw the country back decades," said BSP's leader Sergei Stanishev. … 
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