Uzbek president in hospital – government

ALMATY: Uzbek President Islam Karimov

has been taken to hospital, the Uzbek government said yesterday.

Karimov, 78, whose ex-Soviet nation borders Afghanistan, has been Uzbek leader since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

“According to specialists, full health screening and further treatment will take a certain period of time,” the government said without providing further details.

Uzbekistan will celebrate its 25th Independence Day anniversary on September 1. – Reuters

(pictured) Libya boycott to end

TRIPOLI: A member of the leadership of Libya’s UN-backed government, who is close to powerful rival factions in the east of the country, says he will end his boycott of the Tripoli-based body.

The decision by Ali Gatrani could strengthen the Government of National Accord, coming just days after a second boycotting member of the government’s ninemember leadership, or Presidential Council, said he would resume his role.

But Gatrani referred to concerns around the power of armed groups. – Reuters

Attacker’s posh origins

DHAKA: One of the three militants killed by Bangladeshi security forces on Saturday in connection with July’s Dhaka café attack came from an affluent area of the city and went to a leading foreign university.

Towsif Hossain was from the leafy Dhanmondi neighbourhood.

Like Nibras Islam, another of five young café attackers who was killed after a 12-hour siege on July 2, Hossain had attended the Kuala Lumpur campus of Australia’s prestige Monash University, counter-terrorism police said yesterday. – Reuters

Zika in Singapore

SINGAPORE: There have been 41 cases of locally transmitted Zika virus in Singapore.

The cases include 36 foreign construction workers employed at a site in Aljunied in the south-east of the island, the Straits Times newspaper and Channel News Asia television reported yesterday.

On Saturday, the health ministry confirmed Singapore’s first case of a local transmission of the virus, which in Brazil has been linked to microcephaly, a rare birth defect.

That case was also in the Aljunied area. In all, 34 patients have fully recovered. – Reuters

Merkel losing favour

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s domestic popularity has declined, a poll showed yesterday, with 50% of Germans against her serving a fourth term in office after a federal election next year.

A series of violent attacks on civilians in July, two of which were claimed by Islamic State, have focused attention on Merkel’s opendoor migrant policy, which allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere into Germany last year.

Of the 501 people polled, 42% wanted her to remain. – Reuters

Nuclear ‘spy’ arrested

DUBAI: Iran has arrested a member of the negotiating team that reached a landmark nuclear deal with world powers on suspicion of spying, a judiciary spokesman said on Saturday.

The suspect was released on bail, but is still under investigation. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei told a news conference the unidentified individual was a “spy who had infiltrated the nuclear team”.

The deal that President Hassan Rouhani struck last year has given Iran relief from most international sanctions in return for curbing its nuclear programme. – Reuters

Tibet appointment

BEIJING: China’s ruling Communist Party appointed a new senior official yesterday to run Tibet, considered one of the country’s most politically sensitive positions due to periodic antiChinese unrest in the devoutly Buddhist Himalayan region.

The official Xinhua news agency named Wu Yingjie as Tibet’s next party secretary as part of a broad reshuffle.

Wu has worked almost his entire career in Tibet. – Reuters