Roadside bomb kills eight soldiers

Obama: Mandela is an inspiration

EIGHT soldiers have been killed by a roadside bomb in Thailand’s insurgencyplagued south, police said. A police spokesman said a group of suspected insurgents detonated the bomb on a rural road in Krong Pinang district in Yala province as a truck and an armoured personnel vehicle carrying 10 soldiers passed. Eight soldiers were killed and two officers were wounded. A villager was also injured in the attack.

More than 5700 people have been killed in Buddhist-dominated Thailand’s three southernmost, Muslim-majority provinces since an Islamic insurgency erupted in 2004. Near-daily assaults on security forces and civilians have continued despite both sides agreeing to work on curbing violence over Ramadan.

BARACK Obama has paid tribute to critically ill Nelson Mandela as an “inspiration to the world”. Speaking after talks with South African president Jacob Zuma yesterday, Obama said: “The struggle here, against apartheid, for freedom, [Mandela’s] moral courage, this country’s historic transition to a free and democratic nation, has been a personal inspiration to me. It has been an inspiration to the world, and it continues to be, in so many regions that are divided by conflict, sectarian disputes, religious or ethnic wars, to see what happened in South Africa.” Although Mandela’s condition remains stable but critical, Zuma said he was hopeful the 94-yearold could soon be out of hospital.