The Star Online: World Updates

Cambodia's former king Sihanouk dies in Beijing
Gunmen kill 22 in village in northern Nigeria
Gunmen kill 22 in village in northern Nigeria

Cambodia's former king Sihanouk dies in Beijing

Posted: 14 Oct 2012 05:20 PM PDT

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia's former king Norodom Sihanouk, a widely respected figure through decades of turmoil, died in Beijing on Monday, according to an announcement on national television. He was 89.

Sihanouk was a pre-eminent figure in Cambodia's history through a large part of the 20th century. He held considerable power in the 1950s and 1960s when, as a young, flamboyant ruler he held absolute authority and came to symbolise Cambodia.

Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni (R) and his father, former King Norodom Sihanouk, talk to media after arriving in Phnom Penh in this October 20, 2004 file photo. REUTERS/Adrees Latif/Files

He reigned over Cambodia from 1941-1955 and from 1993-2004.

Sihanouk died of natural causes in the early hours of Monday in a hospital in Beijing and his body would be returned to Cambodia for a funeral at the Royal Palace, the statement on national television said.

In the late 1960s, Sihanouk was powerless to stop his country's slide into the Vietnam War and the 1970s Khmer Rouge "killing fields", under which at least 1.8 million people died during Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist revolution.

He abdicated for the second time in 2004 to make way for his son, Norodom Sihamoni, and went to live in self-imposed exile in Beijing, where he had for years received medical treatment for cancer and diabetes, among other ailments.

After a long period of exile and a U.N.-brokered peace treaty that led to a shaky transition to democracy in the early 1990s, Sihanouk became a figurehead king with limited power. The fate of the monarchy, and the country, then rested with Hun Sen, the current prime minister.

Sihanouk was seen as a symbol of national reconciliation and unity when he retook the throne. Throughout his life he enjoyed the genuine affection of the majority of his people, particularly in the countryside, but he always had enemies in politics.

During a trip to Moscow in 1970 Sihanouk was ousted in a bloodless, right-wing coup led by General Lon Nol, who cranked up the war against Vietnamese and Cambodian communists.

Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge held Sihanouk prisoner in his own palace after their 1975 victory, which ushered in four years of brutality under which almost a quarter of the population died of starvation, disease, execution or torture.

Sihanouk lost five children and 14 grandchildren during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror.

He was forced back into an uneasy coalition with the Khmer Rouge after they were ousted in 1979.

Through the 1980s, the Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk's royalists battled Vietnamese troops and the Hanoi-backed government that Hun Sen eventually led.

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said on Monday Sihamoni would fly to Beijing to collect his late father's body.

(Reporting by Prak Chan Thul; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Paul Tait)

Gunmen kill 22 in village in northern Nigeria

Posted: 14 Oct 2012 04:59 PM PDT

KADUNA (Reuters) - Armed bandits descended on a village in northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing 22 people, most of them shot dead as they were leaving prayers at a mosque, the state police commissioner said.

The attack happened in a remote village called Dogo Dawa in Kaduna state, commissioner Olufemi Adenaike told a news conference. He added that two of the robbers had also been killed.

An investigation had revealed it was a revenge attack by the armed gang because four of its members had been arrested by vigilantes in the village and taken to the police.

"Following the arrest, some unidentified armed gang in Kuyello village, mobilised in large numbers and stormed the village in the early hours of Sunday in a bid to rescue the four persons arrested," he said.

"The gang descended on innocent members of the village, killing a total of 22 persons."

Most of the victims were killed as they left the village mosque, although a number were also killed in their homes, he said. He added that two of the gang members had been killed by the vigilantes in revenge.

Like much of northern Nigeria, Kaduna is plagued by an insurgency led by radical Islamist sect Boko Haram. That, and weapons flooding in from its neighbours on the threshold of the Sahara, have aggravated levels of violence in the region.

Armed robberies and local disputes degenerating into deadly shootouts are increasingly common across the impoverished north.

Kaduna also lies close to Nigeria's volatile "Middle Belt", where Nigeria's mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south meet, and where tensions over land and ethnicity often erupt into violence.

Abdullahi Muhammad, the traditional ruler and councillor of Birnin Gwari, a local government area next door to the village, earlier said the attack was carried out by a well known gang.

"The village had been terrorised by an armed group operating from camps in the forest. These armed men mostly attack villages and motorists along the busy Kaduna to Lagos highway," he said.

(Reporting by Garba Mohammed; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Alison Williams and Cynthia Osterman)