IRAQ
Dozens killed in bombings
Car bombs tore through shopping areas within minutes of each other in mainly Shiite neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital on Sunday, killing at least 37 people and wounding more than 100. The attacks come amid rising sectarian discord in Iraq and appear aimed at shaking Iraqis’ confidence in the Shiite-led government. The explosions struck at the start of the local work week and primarily targeted outdoor markets. Violence in Iraq has fallen since the height of sectarian fighting in 2006 and 2007, but insurgents still frequently launch lethal attacks against security forces and civilians.
PAKISTAN
Attack stirs Shiite anger
Members of the Pakistani Shiite Hazara community Sunday threatened to hold widespread protests if the government did not arrest within 48 hours the people responsible for a massive bombing that killed 81 people in a southwestern city. Saturday’s blast at a produce market in Quetta underlined the precarious situation for Shiites living in a majority Sunni country where many extremist groups don’t consider them real Muslims. Some 160 people were also wounded in the blast. Most of the dead and wounded were Hazaras, an ethnic group that migrated from Afghanistan over a century ago. Shiite Muslims, including Hazaras, have often been targeted by Sunni extremists in Baluchistan province, of which Quetta is the capital.
ECUADOR
Correa wins another term
President Rafael Correa, a dynamic but polemical leftist who has spent heavily on the poor, confidently celebrated his second re-election Sunday even before the first official results were announced. An exit poll gave the incumbent, who first took office in 2007, 61 percent against 20 percent for his closest challenger, former banker Guillermo Lasso. A beaming Correa, 48, appeared on state TV hugging jubilant supporters at the Carondelet presidential palace less than an hour after polls closed. Flanked by his immediate family and closest aides, he addressed a cheering crowd from its balcony. He won re-election in April 2009 after voters approved a constitutional rewrite that mandated a new ballot, and he would be legally barred from running again if victorious.
Compiled from wire reports.
