World Briefs

11-01-2008 |

Panama Star CAIRO, Egypt –A tourist bus overturned in the country's south, killing six Belgian tourists and injuring 26 other Belgian passengers early on Friday, a security official said.

The bus was en route from the southern city of Aswan to the ancient temple at Abu Simbel, a famous tourist attraction, the official said. The driver was speeding, lost control, and veered off the road, causing the bus to overturn several times, he added.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the press. He also said that 21 of the injured have been taken to Abu Simbel International hospital.

Egypt's state-run news agency MENA said four of the injured were in critical condition and were evacuated by military helicopters to hospitals in Cairo for urgent surgeries.

MADRID – Spain's Queen Sofia was Friday embroiled in controversy for opposing the word marriage to describe same-sex unions, putting her at odds both with gay groups and government policy just ahead of her 70th birthday.

"If these people want to live together and dress it up as marriage, they can be within their rights, or not, according to the laws of their country," she is quoted as saying in a new biography "The Queen Up Close".

But she added that this should not be called marriage "because it is not."

Spain's Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals (FELGTB) immediately condemned the remarks, which conflict with the socially liberal policies of Spain's Socialist government.

In 2005, Spain became only the third member of the European Union to allow same-sex marriages.

QUITO, Ecuador – An Ecuadorean presidential commission has concluded that U.S. intelligence services infiltrated the Andean nation's military and police and supported a cross-border incursion by Colombian troops that killed a top rebel commander.

Following the attack on a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia camp inside Ecuador on March 1, President Rafael Correa accused the CIA of infiltrating his nation's intelligence services and appointed a commission to investigate.

The body alleged in its report, made public Thursday, that the CIA bought information from Ecuador's military and had prior knowledge of the raid, said Defense Minister Javier Ponce.

The report cites as evidence an alleged phone call from the CIA announcing the attack to an unidentified person in Ecuador; purported calls from a former colonel in Ecuador's military intelligence to Colombian intelligence services; among others.