The death toll from Sunday's explosion in a Mombasa nightclub rose to three yesterday.

KENYA

Suspect arrested after deadly nightclub blast

Kenyan police said they had arrested a suspect, a man in his 20s injured in the blast and taken to hospital.

The cause of the explosion was not yet known, police said, but there have been several attacks in the port city, popular with Kenyan and foreign holidaymakers.

A day before the blast the US embassy warned of an imminent attack on Mombasa and urged its staff to leave. - Reuters

CANADA

Workers search for victims of roof collapse

WORKERS laboured through the night in search of victims after a roof collapsed at a mall in northern Ontario on Sunday.

At least one person was feared dead and another was suspected to have been trapped in the rubble.

Photographs showed a hand and foot in the dusty debris, said Ontario Provincial Police Inspector Percy Jollymore.

Fire officials had heard tapping in another area of the rubble, but this had stopped.

At least 22 people suffered minor injuries in the incident. - Sapa-AP

ISRAEL

'Pro-Nazi' Hungary MP no longer welcome

THE speaker of Israel's Knesset has withdrawn an invitation to his Hungarian counterpart in protest against his participation in an event honouring a pro-Nazi writer.

Israel's foreign ministry confirmed yesterday that Laszlo Kover was no longer welcome at the parliamentary ceremony next month honouring Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who saved Jews during World War 2.

Reuven Rivlin rescinded the invitation, criticising Kover's participation in an event honouring writer Jozsef Nyiro. - Sapa-AFP

SUDAN

Police fire tear gas at anti-austerity protesters

POLICE used tear gas to disperse anti-government protesters in the impoverished eastern region yesterday. The demonstration was fuelled by an economic crisis.

About 200 protesters gathered in the town of Gedaref, near the border with Eritrea, chanting "No, no to high prices" and "The people want to overthrow the regime".

Police were not immediately available for comment.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir dismissed the protests as the work of a few agitators whose aims were not shared by the majority . - Reuters

UKRAINE

Trial put off until after Euro 2012 final

A COURT yesterday postponed the high-profile tax-evasion trial of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko to July 10, a move that will spare Kiev further negative publicity during the Euro 2012 soccer tournament.

Outrage over Tymoshenko's prosecution - which she says is politically motivated - has already prompted some European politicians to boycott Euro matches, which Ukraine is co-hosting with Poland.

Judge Kostyantyn Sadovsky postponed further hearings at the request of prosecutors . - Reuters

North Korea

Four returned refugees executed, says activist

PYONGYANG has publicly executed four refugees repatriated by China, a South Korean activist said yesterday.

Forty others have allegedly been sent to North Korea's notorious prison camps, according to activist Kim Heung-Kwang.

Human rights groups say there are six political prison camps in the North holding 200000 detainees.

Kim said he had obtained his information from a source inside North Korea, but gave no details. The South's unification ministry, which is in charge of cross-border affairs, declined to comment. - Sapa-AFP

Malaysia

Court orders extradition of Iranian bomb suspect

A COURT yesterday ordered the extradition to Thailand of an Iranian man suspected of involvement in bomb blasts in Bangkok in February, rejecting his defence that he had not known about any plan for an attack.

Masoud Sedaghat Zadeh, 31, will be sent back to Thailand unless his lawyers file an appeal within 15 days, prosecution lawyers said.

Masoud was arrested the day after the blasts as he attempted to board a flight to Iran, police said.

One of the bombs went off at a house that Masoud was sharing with two other Iranian s . - Reuters

JAPAN

Reward for nerve gas attack info to be paid

POLICE were yesterday mulling over how to divide the $250000 reward for information that led to the capture of the final suspects in the 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subway.

Police had put up two lots of $125000 for anyone who tipped them off about where they could find two of Japan's most wanted fugitives.

Their 17-year hunt ended earlier this month with the capture of Katsuya Takahashi, 54, who is believed to have been part of a gang that released Nazi-developed sarin gas on Tokyo's underground system, killing 13 people. - Sapa-AFP

ZIMBABWE

Commercial radio broadcast after 32 years

THE country's first licensed commercial radio station has gone live, ending a 32-year monopoly by the state-controlled broadcaster and meeting some demands to free up the nation's airwaves ahead of proposed elections.

Star FM radio said it would broadcast hourly news bulletins and 50-second headline summaries.

The station is owned by Zimbabwe Newspapers, publishers of newspaper titles loyal to President Robert Mugabe. It announced a schedule strongly weighted with music programmes. - Sapa-AP

Italy

US journalist to perk up Vatican communications

A SCANDAL-hit Vatican, struggling to cope with years of bad press, has hired American Fox News correspondent Greg Burke to help modernise its communications strategy.

"I hope to help the ancient communications machine take some steps forward," Burke said yesterday.

"I've been dealing with the Vatican for 25 years as a journalist. It will be interesting to see how it works on the inside," he said, admitting his new position "will be a challenge". - Sapa-AFP