37 Qaeda suspects killed in Yemen

AFP, Aden

Yemen's army killed 37 al-Qaeda suspects and wounded dozens yesterday as part of a major offensive launched in the south of the country last week, the defence ministry said. The "terrorists" were killed in the Maifaa region of Shabwa province on the sixth day of the operation against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) militants, the ministry said in text messages sent to journalists.

Iraq violence kills 30

AFP, Baghdad

Shelling in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, held by antigovernment fighters for more than four months, has killed 11 people in less than 24 hours as Militants attacked a bus carrying Shia pilgrims north of Baghdad. The bloodshed comes during vote counting from the April 30 general election, the first since American troops withdrew in late 2011, and amid a protracted surge in nationwide unrest.

Children numbers hits new low in Japan AFP, Tokyo

The number of children in Japan has fallen to a new low, while the amount of people over 65 has reached a record high as the population ages and shrinks, the government said yesterday. There were an estimated 16.33 million children aged under 15 as of April 1, down 160,000 from a year earlier, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said. It was the 33rd straight annual decline and the lowest level since records began in 1950, according to the ministry.

2 candidates to test Assad in Syria vote ADP, Damascus

Syria's constitutional court said yesterday the candidacies of incumbent Bashar al-Assad, widely expected to return to power, and two other hopefuls have been accepted for a June 3 presidential election. "The supreme constitutional court announces... the acceptance of candidacy bids registered by... Maher Abdel Hafiz Hajjar, Hassan Abdallah al-Nuri and Bashar Hafez al-Assad," a court official said.

'Free abducted girls', orders Nigeria leader AFP, Abuja

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday ordered top security chiefs and officials to secure the safe release of 223 schoolgirls abducted three weeks ago by suspected Islamists, his spokesman said. Gunmen believed to be Boko Haram Islamists stormed the girls' boarding school on April 14, and abducted them.