World In Brief

Private firms cash in on running jails

UNITED STATES: The US is locking up more illegal immigrants than ever — generating lucrative business for the nation’s largest prison companies.

Private prison firms have spent more than $45 million (£30m) lobbying politicians over the last decade as their share of detention beds has jumped from 10 per cent to nearly half.

China jails 20 Uighurs separatists

CHINA: Courts in Aksu, Kashgar and Urumqi sentenced 20 Uighurs to up to 15 years in jail for terrorist or separatist crimes today.

Courts heard five cases charging them with using the internet and removable storage devices participate in terrorist groups and found that four of them had made illegal explosives.

Aid agencies banned from helping people

BANGLADESH: The government ordered aid agencies Medecins Sans Frontieres, Muslim Aid and Action Against Hunger today not to help thousands of Rohingyas Muslims who have been fleeing violence in neighbouring Myanmar.

Ban ends on investments

INDIA: The government says it has lifted its ban on foreign investment by citizens and companies from Pakistan.

All proposals from Pakistan must be cleared by the government and will only exclude the defence, atomic energy sectors.

Ned Kelly’s bones to be finally sent home

AUSTRALIA: The skeleton of Ned Kelly will finally be returned to his descendants 132 years after he was executed.

Last year, scientists identified Ned Kelly’s skeleton after it was found in a mass grave outside a now-closed prison.

The decision ends the family’s long quest to find and properly bury the remains of a man many Australians now consider a folk hero.

Week-long strike causes rail chaos

COLOMBIA: A strike that began more than a week ago in Colombia has paralysed the railway that carries about 160,000 tons a day of the nation’s coal exports.

Union leader Felix Herrera says that the strikers want raises of at least 15 per cent and the reinstatement of 30 workers fired during a 2009 strike.

He says the 300 striking workers earn an average of about $550 (£352) a month.

Court blocks man’s extradition to US

IRAQ: A court has rejected a request to extradite Hezbollah commander Ali Mussa Daqduq to the US for trial and has ordered that he be released immediately.

The criminal court’s decision ends US efforts to try him in the 2007 killings of five US soldiers in Iraq.

Daqduq is being held under house arrest in Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Violence prompts gun confiscation

HONDURAS: Congress has voted to cancel gun permits in Colon province and confiscate weapons amid violent land ownership disputes.

Farmworkers in the area have been claiming ownership of about 25,000 acres since 2009. The dispute has led to about 64 killings, mostly farmworkers but also some plantation employees and police.